Lucy finally gets her statue

<p>Camera at the ready, Whited Elementary School third grader Brooke Dengler was taking pictures of just about every Lucy Van Pelt statue she could capture Friday.</p><p>When asked her favorite, that was easy.</p><p>“Mrs. Henry's,” Dengler said of her third grade teacher Nancy Henry's “Lucy Sings the Blues” statue. “I like how her hair is different colors, I like all of the details.”</p><p>Henry is a repeat Peanuts on Parade artist who was again tapped to breathe life into a 4-foot statue of a Peanuts character.</p><p>On Friday Henry chaperoned a field trip for all third graders at Whited Elementary to visit the Peanuts on Parade Paint-Off during which artists create the pieces that will be displayed throughout Santa Rosa beginning next month.</p><p>“It was so exciting. They were thrilled to see what really goes on,” Henry said. “It was a very unique opportunity for them.”</p><p>The paint-off is open to the public through Sunday but on Friday morning the Whited third graders got to wander among teams of artists wielding paint brushes, glitter and, in some cases, power tools .</p><p>Toma Day was making gashes in an otherwise nearly bare Lucy in preparation for a team to install a new hairdo and loads of bling to present Lucy as Marilyn Monroe in “Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend.”</p><p>“So far so good, for me,” Day said.</p><p>Lucy marks the fourth installment of the Peanuts on Parade in Santa Rosa. From 2005 through 2007, Peanut's creator Charles Schulz's family and the City of Santa Rosa placed more than 200 statues of Charlie Brown, Woodstock and Snoopy at sites around the city.</p><p>In a break from the past, there will be no auction of the Lucy statues. Fifteen of the 30 statues will be sold to private sponsors and the city will retain control of the other half, placing them permanently at public sites.</p><p>Whited third grader Justin Buchanan is looking forward to tracking down the finished products this summer, something his family has done with the three previous displays.</p><p>Buchanan's mom said she never knew the city creates a map of where statues are located. “We would randomly see them,” she said. “It's kind of a cute little family photo.”</p><p>Talia Jackson said wandering among the Lucys under construction was a blast.</p><p>“This is the best field trip ever,” she said.</p>