YOUNG-WISE MEMORIAL STADIUM AND PLAZA PLAQUE
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Listing Details
Location: Hendrix College, east side of Harkrider Street, between the Wellness and Athletics Center and Young-Wise Memorial Stadium
City: CONWAY
State: Arkansas
Zip Code: 72032
Type of Memorial: Veterans Plazas
Year Dedicated: 2013
Access: Private
Wars Commemorated: WORLD WAR I AND AFGHANISTAN WAR
Photograph By: HENDRIX COLLEGE
Submitted By: HENDRIX COLLEGE
Comments: The plaza is accessible to the public whenever the Wellness and Activities Center is open (exit through the rear lobby doors), or when events are being held at Young-Wise Memorial Stadium.
Young-Wise Memorial Stadium and Plaza are named for Hendrix College alumni Robert Young, who was killed in World War I, and Benjamin and Jeremy Wise, who were killed during separate actions in Afghanistan in 2012 and 2009, respectively.
For the memorial plaza at the entry to the stadium, Hendrix commissioned public artwork to honor the sacrifice of all Hendrix alumni who have given their lives in service to their country. The artwork incorporates the Hendrix Veterans’ Memorial statue of a World War I Doughboy soldier, presented to the College in 1920, and two newer large bronze negative silhouettes of military helmets. The colors on the silhouettes were chosen to reflect the service of the Wise brothers. Jeremy was a U.S. Navy Seal, and Benjamin was a U.S. Army Green Beret.
The installation was designed by sculptor Ken Hruby, a West Point graduate, Vietnam veteran, and faculty member of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Hruby’s work was recommended by a committee of faculty, staff, students, and alumni.
“The negative silhouettes represent the loss, or absence, of the Wise brothers in a clear, visible form,” said Hruby. “The distance between the silhouettes and the Doughboy represents the time span of ninety-odd years between the first and the latter two combat deaths. The siting of the three elements unifies the plaza as a collective memorial rather than individual homages to these three fallen warriors.”
The Doughboy memorial bears the names of honored alumni: Tabor Bevins of Booneville, James Craddock of England, James Dowdy of Clarksville, William A. McGuire of Mountain Home, Joseph W. Reynolds of El Dorado, and Robert W. Young of Okolona.
The memorial includes plaques honoring each of the Wise brothers, and a plaque featuring a poem written by Hendrix English professor Dr. Alex Vernon, a West Point graduate and Persian Gulf War veteran:
Here we honor
War’s truest witnesses
Those silenced souls
Whose bodies did to ours bequeath
This cheerful day
This sporting peace
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