Proudly ON the prowl
Work of art created by college student is the new centerpiece at TAHS
If visitors to Tracy Area High School didn’t know it was the home of the Panthers before this fall, they will now.
Standing in a corner of the school’s new vestibule stands an 8’7” long, 100-pound can’tmiss, prowling black Panther made out of sheet metal, and sandblasted and sprayed with Rhino liner, a material commonly found in truck beds. So, needless to say, it is very durable.
“You can throw a bomb on it and it will probably hold up,” joked the artist, Jasslyn Dahlberg, a student at St. Cloud Technical and Community College.
The panther was put up for auction by SCTCC earlier this fall as part of a fundraiser for its welding program. Thanks to a $2,500 anonymous donation to the Tracy Area Education Foundation, the district had enough in the bank to bid on it. After the bidding went to $1,900, TAPS Supt. Chad Anderson asked the foundation for permission to use the donation for the panther. A foundation member told Anderson that if bidding went over that amount, they would make up the difference. Bidding went until 7 p.m. on Oct. 31, and Anderson put the wining bid of $3,000 in at 6:55 p.m. that day.
Rural Tracy resident and Tracy Area High School graduate Tom Hook picked up the piece of art at St. Cloud Technical and Community College on Nov. 5.
“Everything kind of fell into place,” Anderson said. “We happened to have that anonymous donor, and the foundation said they would chip in if it goes over that limit. It was fun, and stressful, because I really wanted it.”
Dahlberg started the project at the beginning of her second semester at SCTCC back in late January and finished it in late April. This was her first project; she has since done a turtle and a sword.
“It’s my biggest one for sure,” she said. “Go big or go home — I wanted to do something that would stand out … call it the fear of being average. I didn’t want to do an average project. Why be average when you don’t have to be?”
Dahlberg said she likes panthers and was inspired to create her own through Pinterest. She watched a video of a man making his own Panther and went from there, buying a CAD file on Etsy for about $70.
“I wanted to do something artistic, and I like Panthers — I just wanted to do something out of the ordinary,” she said.
An Ogilvie native, Dahlberg has graduated from the St. Cloud Technical and Community College welding program and is now in the marketing and design program there, working toward her Associates Degree. She said she is more than pleased with how the Panther turned out and is gratified knowing it will be on display for so many to see.
“I feel blessed that I was able to do something like this and for other people to see it,” she said.
Dahlberg also said her project might even inspire today’s students, who may have only limited knowledge of the welding trade.
“I feel like it can open up the minds of people that welding is not just putting pieces together,” Dahlberg said. “You can make art with welding. It makes it a little more fun for people with artistic minds.”
Anderson said he had been looking around for a Panther statue to add to the campus to round out the district’s rebranding efforts that began a few years ago. Until the high school received an email about Dahlberg’s creation, however, he had no luck.
“I think they were sending the email out to all schools with a panther mascot,” he said.
Anderson requested a photo of the panther, and he was sold. “We’ve done a lot at the elementary school with the little panther and getting the colors and themes there, and with the high school with the “Home of the TMB Panthers” sign, and the Panther head … this panther gives everything an exclamation point.”
The TAEF is made of of 10 members: Anderson, Hook, Eric Fultz, Ed Carter, Brenda Bengston, Mary Arnold, Darcy Carlson, Jesse James, Seth Schmidt and Patty LeClaire.
