Prairie Giants: The Midwest American Idols
By Alicia Betzen, Staff Writer

     From the open, rolling plains of North Dakota to the 10,000 lush lakes of Minnesota, they stand tall and strong. They overlook quiet highways and serve as small town heroes. They come in a variety of colors, shapes and sizes. They are all exquisitely unique, yet share a common bond; they represent life in small towns across the nation. To call these creations merely statues or figurines would not do them justice. To dying communities across the Midwest, they are the real American idols.

Who Thinks of These Things?

     Just about every creature native to North Dakota and Minnesota is idolized in the form of a oversized structure, overlooking the town of its birth. (Or so the townsfolk say.) The creatures come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and give tourists a proud revelation of what makes each small town different from the next.
With his powerful green hands on his hips, and nothing but a leafy toga to keep him warm in the winter, the Jolly Green Giant stretches his forty-eight inch smile across the sea of vegetable fields surrounding Blue Earth, MN. The fable of the valley of the Jolly Green Giant came to life in 1929, when the Blue Earth Canning Company took on his likeness for their new corporate image. Even after the Green Giant was bought by Pillsbury, then Grand Met, and most recently Seneca Foods, he remained a symbol for the town of Blue Earth. In the mid-1970s, radio station owner Paul Hedberg announced his idea to resurrect a statue of their green friend. September 24, 1978, the $1,000-a-foot giant was ready to begin his career of inviting new friends to Blue Earth.
     Another proud representation of Minnesota's hard working farm communities makes its home in Rothsay, MN, a.k.a the Prairie Chicken Capital of Minnesota. Sculptor Art Fosse constructed the 9,000-pound prairie chicken out of steel pipes and thousands of pounds of cement. The "Booming Prairie Chicken" was unveiled June 15, 1976, with the sole purpose of "alerting our visitors and reminding local residents of the beauty to be found on the native prairie grasslands," according to the base of the statue. The 13-feet-tall statue is seen as a fertility god of sorts and every spring prairie chickens are released around the base of the monument to perform their unique mating rituals.
   

American Idols continued............

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