Chris Smith: Graffiti-marred Santa Rosa mural gets temporary fix for Juneteenth

udy Kennedy shook her head.

The public art advocate was pained by the ugly ganglike graffiti that marred the South Park neighborhood mural honoring local and national champions of equality and humanity.

Even more distressing to Kennedy last week was that on Saturday, the 18th, the annual Martin Luther King Festival and Juneteenth Celebration was to be held right there at the home of mural, the Head Start preschool complex on Santa Rosa’s Hendley Street.

Kennedy couldn’t bear the thought of the children and other Juneteenth guests gazing at the defaced mural. But she concluded that repairing the spray-paint vandalism was beyond her ability, especially with so little time remaining before Juneteenth. She lay awake when a thought came to her.

Kennedy collected photographs of all the heroic figures portrayed on the mural. among them Dr. King, the Rev. James Coffee, Eddie Mae Sloan, Jesse Love, Alicia Sanchez, Platt Williams and Cesar Chavez.

With the agreement of Vince Harper of Community Action Partnership, operator of the preschool, she had the portraits enlarged to 2-feet by 3-feet. Using a water soluble adhesive, she neatly applied them over the top of the damaged mural.

“It was a beautiful thing Saturday morning,” she admits.

Later that day, Juneteenth celebrants admired the mosaic of photos that will cloak the vandalized mural until a more permanent solution is devised.

So nicely done.

HHHHHH

VICTIMS IN ORLANDO and their loved ones are on the minds of the local Bar Association members who are pulling together a benefit Wednesday night in Healdsburg.

It starts at 6:30 p.m. at the Healdsburg Golf Club. There will be wine, of course, and also beer and light food.Co-host Angela Trinder-Clements said there are cool silent-auction items.

Everyone’s invited. There will be ample opportunities to donate to those wounded at the Pulse nightclub and to survivors of those who died.

As Trinder-Clements said, “It’s a great way to feel like we can do something.”

HHHHHH

TWO NEW EMMYS make a total of nine now won by “Natural Heroes,” the documentary series conceived by our KRCB and broadcast by PBS stations across the nation.

Each episode is created by an independent filmmaker and features people who make a difference for the environment.

“It’s been a spectacularly successful series,” said a beaming Nancy Dobbs, chief of the Rohnert Park-based KRCB.

It shows “Natural Heroes” on Monday evenings.

HHHHHH

RUBEN STARTS A RACE: Look what Ruben Armiñana gets to do as he prepares to conclude his historic, nearly quarter-century run as president of Sonoma State University.

Sunday at Sonoma Raceway, he’ll flip on a mic and declare in his Cuba-tinged English, “Drivers, start your engines!”

Though he’s collected boxloads of honors, Armiñana is tickled that the raceway named him grand marshal of Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race.

As a warmup to the big event, on Friday evening he’ll preside over the charitable and social event that is the Children’s Champions banquet at Sonoma’s Cline Cellars.

Chris Smith is at 521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @CJSPD.