Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Odessa soon to have even more contrasts

THE POINT — Volunteers just keep adding to the culture in West Texas.

“Here oft, when Evening sheds her twilight ray,
And gilds with fainter beam departing day,
With breathless gaze, and cheek with terror pale,
The lingering shepherd startles at the tale,
How, at deep midnight, by the moon’s chill glance,
Unearthly forms prolong the viewless dance;
While on each whisp’ring breeze that murmurs by,
His busied fancy hears the hollow sigh.”
from “Stonehenge,” by T.S. Salmon, 1823

To the uneducated, Odessa still must seem a place with wide-open spaces, oil wells and little else.
But, to those who live here, it truly is a “city of contrasts” … and is becoming more so every day.
In the “boomtown” days when oil was emerging as king, who would have thought of Odessa as a place of poetry, presidents and the arts? Today, though, it is routinely accepted.
There’s the Globe Theater of the Great Southwest, a replica of William Shakespeare’s original. There’s the one-of-a-kind Presidential Museum and the Ellen Noel Art Museum of the Permian Basin.
These facilities, plus much, much more, are testaments to the fact that the Odessa of 2004 is a place firmly rooted in education, history and “the arts.” And soon there will be even more.
Stonehenge is coming, but not the real one. Even though the actual London Bridge now resides in Arizona, it’s doubtful any amount of money would be able to pry the ancient subject of the poem above away from England.
Odessa’s Stonehenge will be a replica exact in horizontal dimension with 70 percent of the vertical dimension of the original stone structure. It will sit on less than a half-acre of land at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin.
While the tallest stone in England is 22 feet high, the replica’s tallest will be 19 feet. Replacing the “bluestones” of the British site, Odessa’s replica will be of limestone, all being donated by Connie Edwards, owner of TexaStone in Garden City.
And, while UTPB and members of its staff are deeply involved in the project, it is a voluntary effort. Dick Gillham, Permian Basin Stonehenge coordinator, said that while much of the labor and material costs are being donated, “It’ll be privately funded by individual and corporate donations. There’s no cost to the university.”
This is the beauty of how so many “extra” things have come to be in Odessa. Nature gave the area oil and the Meteor Crater. Tax dollars provide government buildings, water systems and other facilities that are necessary for civilized societies.
But, it is through the dedicated efforts of volunteers who give their time and money that the community receives the “icing” that sets it apart. Odessa’s true “contrast” (when compared to other cities) is that people of vision see the possibility of more than just a flat landscape with few trees.
They even see what their peers of 5,000 years ago saw … Stonehenge, Move over Jack Ben Rabbit … by the end of June you’ll have even more competition.
And that’s good for Odessa, the Permian Basin and all its residents.