A new chapter for downtown’s bronze statue

Recent efforts to replace a bronze statue’s stolen book were inspired by a Camas fifth-grader who was concerned that the little girl looked lonely. In turn, the bronze statue inspired the 9-year-old’s imagination and creativity as the subject of her very own short story, featuring dragons, thieves, beasts and magic spells.

Olivia Brotherton, a student at Grass Valley Elementary School, was on hand Saturday afternoon to unveil the newly refurbished “reading girl” bronze statue. The statue of a little girl reading a book sits on one of the benches that surround the fountain located at Northeast Fourth Avenue and Cedar Street in downtown Camas.

The event, attended by a crowd that included Mayor Scott Higgins, members of the Camas City Council, Downtown Camas Association Executive Director Carrie Schulstad, and local citizens, was part of Spring Into History” month, organized by the DCA.

More than a decade ago, shortly after it was installed, the book was stolen from the statue and never replaced.

Brotherton and her grandfather, Camas resident Randy Curtis, walked by the statue one day about a month ago after having dinner with family. They wondered about its backstory.

Inspired by his granddaughter’s inquisitive nature and love of reading and writing, Curtis set out to work with the city to get the book replaced. He created a model for the book out of a Trex composite deck board. After showing it to some folks from the Downtown Camas Association and the Chamber of Commerce, he realized he found the solution.

The statue was originally purchased by an organization that was then known as the Camas Downtown Association, through a $1,000 grant from the United Camas Association of Neighborhoods. Uta Zuendel, a longtime Camas resident and downtown revitalization supporter, bought it from a nursery in Woodburn, Ore., as a pilot project for public art in Camas. Zuendel was on hand Saturday to see the second unveiling.