Bronze statue arrives in Medina and will be featured in Saturday’s Parade of Lights
Photos by Ginny Kropf: Lynne Menz, whose father the late Bill Menz pushed to erect a monument in front of the Medina armory to pay tribute to the men who trained there for several wars, gets a close look at details on the bronze statue which will be placed atop the monument. The statue, which was nearly two years in the making, was picked up today at UB’s foundry and returned to Medina. It will appear in Saturday’s Parade of Lights and then be stored until spring for its installation.
This rendering shows how the statue will look when it is installed atop a monument by the former Medina Armory, which is now the Orleans County YMCA.
MEDINA – The Parade of Lights this Saturday will feature a very special float.
Those who attend the spectacular parade will get the first glimpse of a statue which will be erected atop the monument in front of Medina Armory (YMCA).
The existing monument was an idea of Medina native Bill Menz and pays tribute to the 550 men from Orleans County and the surrounding area who were members of Company F and trained there.
The final piece of the monument, the life-size bronze statue of an infantryman, was delivered to Medina this afternoon by a family friend, John Brown of Batavia, accompanied by Menz’ daughter Lynne Menz, Cathy Fox (whose father was a member of Company F), Kathy Iorio (whose father Butch Whittleton was a member of Company F) and Ginny Kropf, who has covered the story for the media from day one. Meeting them at the University of Buffalo’s foundry was Lynne Stewart, whose father was a member of Company C and also trained at the armory.
Sadly, Menz, at the age of 86, died in July, four months short of seeing completion of his dream.
A veteran himself, Menz first pitched his idea in 2006 to a local World War II veterans’ reunion.
He thought there should be a monument in front of the Medina Armory which would pay tribute, not only to the men who trained there for four world conflicts from 1898 to 1945, but to veterans from all wars. This also included Company C, which trained there from 1947 through 1977, when the National Guard stopped using the building.
With the support of the Sandstone Society, of which Bill was a member, and two years of fundraising, in 2008, the five-sided monument was dedicated, with several World War II veterans and their families in attendance.
Bill’s vision didn’t end there, however, and he began planning for the next phase of his monument – the bronze statue.
Chris Siano, president of the Foundry Group at the University of Buffalo, loads the bronze statue of a Company F statue onto the trailer to be brought back to Medina.
More fundraising ensued to raise an additional $65,000 and on Jan. 16, 2017, sculptor Brian Porter of Pendleton was commissioned to do the statue.
In the following months, Bill, Lynne, Fox and Kropf made visits to Porter’s home to view his progress.
Menz, in a wheelchair, also got to visit the foundry at UB were the firing was done, just 11 days before he died.
Menz may not have been physically present to see the statue returned to Medina, but he was there in spirit. Lynne wore her dad’s Company F sweatshirt, and as her dad insisted every time they visited Lockport, the group stopped at Ted’s Hot Dogs for lunch.
The Company F soldier will be the first where Porter incorporated 3-D imaging to create molds for the cast bronze statue. In the new process, a miniature clay model was scanned with the 3-D technology and data sent to a CNC machine, which cut out thin plywood slices which were then glued together. This wood structure became a subframe on which clay was applied.
From left, Chris Siano, president of the Foundry Group at the University of Buffalo; John Brown, family friend of the late Bill Menz who delivered the Company F statue to Medina; and sculptor Brian Porter of Pendleton work to secure the statue for its ride to Medina, where it will appear in Saturday’s Parade of Lights.
Porter is also an assistant professor of art at Erie Community College, and has created such masterpieces as the United States Seabees Memorial in North Tonawanda. He has also worked with the University of Buffalo to create two statues of graduates to be installed at their North Campus.
The statue’s unveiling at the Parade of Lights at 6 p.m. will be in front of a crowd anticipated to be 10,000 people.
It is interesting to note the parade route is the exact opposite of that taken by those troops when they marched from the Armory to the train station all those years ago.
The statue was met at the Pickle Factory by Shelby Highway Superintendent Mike Fuller who lifted it off the trailer and placed it in storage, where it will be readied for the parade. In the spring, the Medina Department of Public Works will help erect the 1,500-pound statue on the monument at the Armory.
The statue of a pre-World War I doughboy is ready for its return to Medina from the foundry at UB, where it was fired.
Sculptor Brian Porter, center, gets a group hug from the ladies who have been involved with creation of a statue paying tribute to soldiers who trained at the Medina Armory in Company F. From left are Kathy Iorio, Cathy Fox, Porter, Lynne Menz and Lynne Stewart. The statue was returned from the foundry at UB to Medina this afternoon.
The late Bill Menz always had to stop at Ted’s Hot Dogs in Lockport when he went to visit sculptor Brian Porter in Pendleton to check on the progress of the statue being created of a Company F doughboy. In Menz’ honor, his daughter Lynne Menz, left, Kathy Iorio, center, and Cathy Fox stopped at Ted’s on their return from UB, where they accompanied the completed statue to Medina.
