A large wooden bear chair is set to arrive in the Ronnie Williams Student Center in spring 2023. SGA allocated $10,000 to pay for the creation of the bear chair by woodcarver Alex Ward of Cedar Valley Carvings LLC, during its Nov. 7 meeting. The motion passed 35-0.
Ward pitched the carving at SGA’s Halloween meeting. He said the bear chair could be a photo opportunity for visitors, staff and students.
Ward said, “Ok so you guys want a ‘bear chair’ or ‘bear throne.’ The reason I say bear throne is because I want to carve something huge. I want people when they walk by to go like ‘holy shit.’ That’s what I want.”
Ward said he is not requesting the full cost of the carving.
“The cost would be $10,000. Typically, I would want $20,000 for a piece like this, but money is not what I’m chasing here. This is one of those pieces that I would like to carve and 20-30 years from now, hopefully, I’m retired, I can be like ‘oh I did the bear throne at UCA.’ That’s what I want; I want people to remember something big,” Ward said.
Ward asked SGA for a $2,500 commitment to the project, which he would start in late January of 2023 and finish in April of 2023.
Senior class president and senator of the month Annabelle VanAsche worked on getting the bear chair project underway.
“The bear chair gang has worked really hard on this; we’ve really had to make sure everything has been good to go. We talked to Colin Stanton in the student center just to make sure where we would put it would be adequate and then we also talked to Kevin Carter in the physical plant to make sure we could get it into the building and a few other things. So once again, we do have all our bases covered and we just really appreciate the support,” VanAsche said.
Junior senator Makenna Goss introduced the motion to allocate the funds.
“We think it’s a great opportunity to really leave an impact on campus and promote the senate’s goal of just having more UCA branding material on campus and giving students that photo-op. It’s gonna be something that lasts for decades,” VanAsche said.
Ward did not attend UCA, but he has roots in the community.
“I live just a mile away from UCA. My grandfather used to be the head football coach here for 20 years, Coach Ken Stephens, and my step-grandmother, Donna Stephens is a professor of journalism here. Then, my great grandfather is Dave Ward. So my full name is Dave Alex Ward. I have a lot of history here at UCA. I never went here, but I have a lot of history that ties me to this town,” Ward said.
In its Nov. 7 meeting, SGA also touched on its work to get more dispensers for free feminine products on campus.
Senator Madison Yarbrough said, “We know that in the academic buildings we have the SGA dispensers where people can get free feminine products, but those aren’t open 24 hours or weekends. So that’s a lot of time that people can’t have access to those. We’ve talked to the food pantry, and they said if we get donations, we can put them in there, and we’re working on getting back with housing to hopefully have them in any of the on-campus dorms that have public bathrooms so that people can just get them whenever.”
In recent business, SGA voted 38-0 to give $3,500 to the Miss UCA competition, during its Oct. 31 meeting.
Herron said that the funding “covers a Reynolds performance hall fee, the advertising fee, and the award plaques for Miss UCA 2023 winners fee.”
SGA also passed a motion 38-0 to give $4,250 to the Pack Shack meal packing event.
SGA will host a town hall with President Houston Davis at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 9, to discuss the relocation of the Burdick deli.
