Guy Harper is a retired citizen who resides in Gregory Heights and is a nationally respected wood carver, working with red cedar to create Northwest Indian art.

Several years ago, when I stumbled on the wonderful unsung work Guy writes about below, I called the carver who lives in New York. He said he hoped the city would do whatever is necessary to preserve the carvings and the big stump, which he found in Snohomish County and trucked to Burien.

We will send him a copy of this renewal of his creation.

- Jerry Robinson

THE RETURN OF THE STUMP PEOPLE!
By Guy Harper

Many years ago, before Burien became a city, King County provided several neighborhood parks--of which one was King County Park #10--now Dottie Harper Park located at 4th Avenue Southwest and Southwest 146th Street.

The landscape architect, at that time, called for the design of a sculpture using a very large "old growth" Western Red cedar stump. Large cedar pieces, in the shape of humans and animals, were to be dancing around the outside of the stump.

Additionally, an unusual drinking fountain was made from a huge four-foot granite boulder that had a sculptured frog on the top. Also, there was a mathematical game utilizing pebbles in carved cups in a horizontal cedar log.

All this happened in 1974--and the artist's name was Richard Beyer. Mr. Beyer's name is probably more notable for his 1978 Fremont district's sculpture, "People Waiting for the Interurban" and the more recent fisherman and salmon piece in Des Moines.

Over the years, the Stump People sculpture had weathered and so the City of Burien made the decision to protect this work of art and have the figures renovated.

Recently, this work was completed and the figures have once again been affixed to the basic cedar stump.

Next time you are visiting Dottie Harper Park, take a look at these Richard Beyer legacies. They are wonderful!