COURTESY OF NANCY MARTIN Famed Hawaii cowboy Ikua Purdy pursues a bull in this statue by Fred Fellows, of Arizona. The 27-foot-long sculpture is so big that Waimea backers need more time to prepare a display area for it.

Statue of famous
paniolo dwarfs its
designated plot

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By Rod Thompson
rthompson@starbulletin.com

WAIMEA, Hawaii >> A flatbed trailer carrying an enormous statue of famed Hawaiian cowboy Ikua Purdy roping a bull was pulled into the parking lot of the Parker Ranch Shopping Center Feb. 23 for a blessing with all the proper ceremonies.

COURTESY PHOTO Ikua Purdy: He set the steer roping record in 1908

Then the statue was towed back to a warehouse.

The problem is the size of the statue, 16 feet high and 27 feet long. "It's huge," said veterinarian Dr. Billy Bergin, president of the Paniolo Preservation Society, which is putting up the monument.

An alternate site for it will be prepared, and dedication is now expected in mid-June, Bergin said.

Nearly a century has passed since Purdy rode to fame in 56 seconds at the Frontier Days rodeo in Cheyenne, Wyo., in 1908.

First, his cousin Archie Kaaua set a world record in steer roping. Moments later, Purdy broke Kaaua's new record.

Purdy's half brother, Jack Low, came in sixth, roping his steer shortly after suffering an asthma attack.

Eben Low, Jack's brother, who sponsored their trip to Wyoming, wrote in his memoirs, "You cannot imagine the noise of the applause our boys received from those 30,000 watchers after the announcement of the final results. The kanakas won!"

After his triumph, Waimea-born Purdy moved to Ulupalakua, Maui, where he died in 1945.

Waimea real estate agent Leslie Agorastos, born on Maui and raised on the neighboring Kaonoulu Ranch, was 2 when he died. Twenty years later, people still talked about him, she said.

"My uncles were some of the roughest, toughest guys, and they thought he walked on water," she said.

Decades later, Agorastos was at an auction to benefit the Old Hawaii on Horseback pageant when she casually remarked to Bergin, "We ought to get Fred Fellows to do a statue of Ikua Purdy."

Arizona artist Fellows was already well known in Hawaii for his table-top bronze sculptures of the Hawaiian "tree saddle."

The idea of a statue grew, and with it, the size. Bergin knew the paniolo society was getting a 16-by-27-foot monument, but he had never envisioned how truly large that is until it arrived in late January.

The sculpture was supposed to fit on a 50-foot-long patch of grass at the front of the Parker center. "Now it's like a great big monument on a postage stamp," he said.

Bergin had visions of tourists with cameras stepping way back to get the whole picture and walking right into street traffic.

An alternate site, 120 feet long, was picked at one side of the Parker parking lot, but several weeks' work will be needed to make it suitable to hold the giant artwork.

Meanwhile, new ideas have sprung up.

The monument cost $300,000, of which roughly $100,000 remains to be raised. To pay for it, the paniolo society has been selling 16-inch-long scale models for $3,200 and 5-foot-long ones for $16,000.

Now the society is also selling 12-by-12-inch and 16-by-32-inch bronze plaques, which will bear the brands of various ranches that buy them and other information. The prices range from $800 to $3,400. These plaques will be placed around the base of the monument.

And Bergin envisions the grassy area around the monument having picnic tables and shade trees.

The end product will honor all of Hawaii's cowboys, Bergin says. "It illustrates how hard work, diligence, attention to duty and practice made them what they were."

Those are values that Hawaii and America would do well to reflect on today, he said.