CUBA – During the R-2 District school board meeting on Oct. 28, art teachers Michelle Steiger and Samantha Medlock proposed the idea of creating a mural that would be displayed on school property.

Cuba is known as the “mural city” and Steiger brought up the idea of having community involvement while expressing wildcat pride.

“I was inspired by a Facebook post I saw from another town where they created a community mural,” Steiger said. “They had each community member create a tile and when it was put together, created one large image. The idea right now is very loose but my vision is that it’s a Wildcat or something like that. And then our vision in the picture here is that we have that big, long space, and then you have the smaller space. I was thinking maybe some text in the smaller space that says, one family, one school or one community, one family. And then the bigger space will be something like a giant wildcat, or whatever we want to see.”

Steiger and Medlock said that they have met a couple times to discuss the project and are open to any ideas to improve the project. After discussion with the board members, everyone agreed that this should be a project worked on by the community.

“I love, love, love the idea of it being a community project, where you need 1000s and 1000s of tiles to do this,” Steiger said. “So we’re talking about art from the elementary kids, the middle school kids, the high school kids, the teachers, the school board, etc.”

School Board President Jennifer Moreland said that she liked the idea of creating individual tiles that would come together to display a message or a word. Steiger agreed and said that this project could give community members creative freedom as long as they stayed within the color scheme.

“You could paint a portrait of your grandmother that went to school here 50 years ago,” Steiger said. “And if you’re using the correct color scheme, you could basically paint whatever they wanted within reason. So if you are standing back, you see this beautiful mural that’s very sharp, but then when you step up close to it, you could be like, Oh my gosh, that’s Grandma, or I painted that.”

The exact location of the mural was then brought up and discussed. Steiger, Medlock and the board narrowed the potential location down to two places — the east side of the elementary cafeteria facing Route 19 or the south side of the elementary gym. Moreland brought up the pros and cons of each location.

“I like the idea of having it on the gym. However, unless you’re visiting the back of our school, pulling into the elementary, or you’re a high school student, you’re limited in who’s going to see it. Whereas if you were utilizing the side of the cafeteria in the elementary you are getting all of the traffic that’s just on 19 that’s packed in our schools.”

Steiger responded by saying that the proposed side facing the 19 has room for multiple smaller murals. 

“With that side, we talked about doing a historical series. So you would start when Cuba school started, and then 10 more years, the next 10 years and maybe look inside a classroom. But doing a series of those across there would be pretty cool.”

Board member Cheri Schuette said that she liked the idea of it being seen from the 19 due to the amount of traffic passing by. 

“Going to and from Steelville, there are a lot of vehicles. People go down to still go floating. They do come this way sometimes too. But so I’m thinking that you probably would be able to see part of this when you’re coming back up from Steelville.”

Steiger, Medlock and the board agreed that they should start with one mural and paint more over time. 

“It could be a series, but I think we should do one that’s like a big pow, bam. And then I think that it could carry on and we could do one a year,” Steiger said.

An official plan or start date wasn’t solidified but Steiger and Medlock said that they will continue to brainstorm ideas and bring them back to the board.