Neosho Arts Council celebrates restoration of Rocketdyne Mural

May 22—NEOSHO, Mo. — A 60-year-old mural representing one man's vision of what his work was leading to has been cleaned and restored, and is now hanging on a hallway wall in Davidson Hall at Crowder College in Neosho.

The Neosho Arts Council was joined by officials with Crowder, the Neosho Chamber of Commerce and five former co-workers of the artist, Lawrence Sanchez, to celebrate the restoration of the former Rocketdyne Mural, a 36-by-6-foot mural that hung on the wall of the cafeteria of the old Rocketdyne plant for 50 years of its life.

"This mural was painted the same year (1963) that Crowder College opened and spent 50 years just down the road inside Rocketdyne and the businesses that used the facility after they closed, which means not many people had seen this work of art," said Janet Penn, with the Neosho Arts Council on Monday during a ribbon-cutting to celebrate the completion of the restoration. "With the restoration completed, the community can view the mural as the artist intended."

Lawrence Sanchez, known as Larry, died Dec. 3, 2014, at the age of 96 in Texas, but one of the Rocketdyne employees who helped him with the mural, Chester Wagner, who turned 90 on Monday, was on hand to talk about his friend.

"He was a great guy, a good friend of mine," Wagner said. "He used to come to my house. He was into photography. He wasn't near the photographer that he was a painter. I was a painter. I painted the trucks and forklifts and things, and he put the logos on them, painted them."

Wagner said that he helped Sanchez with some of the background painting and with construction of the frame.

"He did this in his spare time because he was a sign painter," Wagner said. "It was in the cafeteria, and it was done in his spare time. He designed it himself and his impression of what (outer) space was going to look like. We built rocket engines for NASA."

Rocketdyne operated in the 250,000-square-foot plant from 1956 to 1968.

"Rocketdyne was the manufacturer of rocket engines for NASA, making rocket engines for programs such as the Mercury and Gemini and Saturn V, which brought the Apollo missions to the moon," Penn said. "He (Sanchez) was a technical illustrator for the company. The Rocketdyne Mural depicts the future of space exploration. In 1963, mankind had just begun to explore space. John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, making history only one year earlier.

"It would be six years after the mural's completion before mankind set foot on the moon. The main focus on the piece is the space capsule resembling an early Apollo era design concept of orbiting the rocky surface of the moon."

Penn said the mural was painted on panels and attached to the wall of the cafeteria by 160 bolts, which were covered by canvas and painted over to look like the background.

Repairs needed because of the damage done to the mural when it was moved from Rocketdyne to Crowder in 2013 were part of the $20,000 restoration project.

"The mural was then installed here at Crowder College and the bolts were covered, and an attempt to match the paint was made, probably a pretty poor attempt," Penn said. "Unfortunately, the material covering the bolts began to come away, leaving exposed bolt heads. A team of conservationists removed all the bolt covers, again 160 of them. The 2013 paint repair didn't match the original colors after drying because they used a different kind of paint to make the repairs. We were able to speak to the family of the artist and learn that Sanchez had a preference for working in egg tempura. We were able to share that with the restoration team, and they tested the paint to confirm it was egg tempura. The conservation team used raw pigments to match the original color and design."

The conservationists also cleaned decades of grime left by people smoking around the mural and other sources, repaired some bowing in the panels and coated the mural in a UV-protective sealant.

"This restoration work would not have been possible without the financial support of businesses and individuals in our community," Penn said.

Crowder College President Katricia Pierson said having the mural back at Crowder is a big deal for the staff and students at the college.

"First, the connection, Crowder is 60 years old and the mural is 60 years old, and to have that connection to the community is pretty fabulous," Pierson said. "If you had seen this mural before restoration, it was kind of dull, and the restoration is incredible, the colors pop out of it. I have to admit, I'm a 'Star Trek' fan and I grew up on 'Star Trek' and just space as the final frontier. That runs through my mind every time I see this mural."

Neosho's aviation history The Rocketdyne plant was originally built by the U.S. Air Force as AF Plant No. 65 for a competitor, Aerojet General, which manufactured engines for Titan intercontinental ballistic missiles. The Air Force changed its mind and contracted with the Rocketdyne division of North American Aviation to employ about 1,250 people there making booster and sustainer rocket motors. After Rocketdyne ceased operations, a series of companies, including Teledyne, Sabreliner and Premier Turbines, occupied the plant until 2014. Source: http://heroicrelics.org/neosho/former-rocketdyne-plant/index.html {related_content_uuid}a882b7fa-d56a-4f57-b198-b1378d4712f7{/related_content_uuid}