Bronze bust would honor Lawton community activist

Friends of Barbara Curry want to honor her memory with a bronze bust in Ned Shepler Park.

Curry, known for her can-do spirit and drive to bring more women into the voting and political arenas, died in August 2022 while she was in the middle of one of her special projects: Celebrating Suffrage, a bronze statue honoring the women’s suffrage and the civil rights movements. The remaining members of the Women That VOTE! Arts Corporation have taken on that task, but have proposed a change in the monument.

Rather than having a circle of five women representing elements of the suffrage and civil rights movements — a project estimated at $200,000 — Women That VOTE! members want to create a bronze bust of Curry. The bust would be mounted on a boulder of native stone and erected in the sculpture garden city officials are planning for the renovated area in downtown Lawton’s Ned Shepler Park. Curry had already planned to locate her monument in that park, and three benches and lights mark the place the monument would have been placed.

Patty Neuwirth, treasurer for Women That VOTE! Arts Corporation, said members want to change the project to a bronze bust of Curry, and funding already is available to pay for the bust and for two more benches that were planned as part of the complex.

“We decided to change direction,” Neuwirth said about a project that fits into city plans to create the sculpture garden, citing the difficulties of continuing Curry’s suffrage monument project without her being available to spearhead the effort.

Tulsa sculptor Denise Ford, who created the Celebrating Suffrage monument, already has created the bust of Curry, a head and shoulders image that will be highlighted with lights. The bust can serve as a way to honor Curry and other women in the community, Neuwirth and members of Women That VOTE! said. Neuwirth said three existing benches already honor women in the community, and the remaining two could do the same.

Neuwirth said supporters want to move forward with the project because Ford has warned them “we will lose our place at the foundry.” The bronze bust will have to be fired at a foundry, and the wait time for that process might be months or years if Lawton doesn’t move forward with the project soon.

“We want to get it made and store it until we can put it in Shepler Park,” Neuwirth said, adding the project has been discussed with Curry’s son and he supports the idea.

Kameron Good, a city planner, said the City Planning Commission and City Council are involved in the project because both bodies must sign off on any changes made to city property and city boards already had approved Curry’s original monument. The planning commission recommended the change, action that will be forwarded to the council for a final decision. Neuwirth said Women That VOTE! will move forward with the bust plan as soon as approval is granted.