$780,000 raised for Capitol statues

Funds to pay for statues of county music icon Johnny Cash and civil-rights leader Daisy Gatson Bates to represent Arkansas in the U.S. Capitol have surpassed $780,000, officials said Thursday.

With Act 1068 of 2019, state lawmakers ordered the replacement of the two century-old statues representing the Natural State in the U.S. Capitol with likenesses of Cash and Bates.

The measure came with an unfunded appropriation of $750,000, though Gov. Asa Hutchinson set a $1 million fundraising goal in mounting a public push for donations in November.

The Foundation for Arkansas Heritage and History, a nonprofit that supports the state Division of Arkansas Heritage, is acting as a repository for private charitable gifts that will fund the cost of designing and creating the statues and will turn those donations over to the secretary of state’s office.

At its annual funding meeting on Wednesday, the Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Council approved a $250,000 grant that the secretary of state’s office had requested for the project, Stacy Hurst, secretary of the state Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism, said in an email Thursday.

The council manages the Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Grants and Trust Fund, which is funded by Arkansas’ real-estate transfer tax.

The secretary of state’s office will receive the grant funding July 1, said Kurt Naumann, director of administration and government relations for Secretary of State John Thurston.

As of Thursday, the Foundation for Arkansas Heritage and History has raised $536,372 in private contributions for the statues, Hurst said. Of those contributions, $476,372 has been received, and $60,000 has been pledged.

Major contributors include Walmart, the city of Little Rock, Sony Music Entertainment, the Walton Family Foundation, Crown Merchandise, the Murphy Foundation, Murphy USA Charitable Foundation, David and Susie Sloane, Simmons Bank and the Tyson Family Foundation, Hurst said.

The state, through its CapThe itol Arts and Grounds Commission and National Statuary Hall steering committee, narrowed the potential artists for each of the new statues to three finalists earlier this year.

Each of the finalists will create clay models of what their final sculptures will look like. The final statue will be bronze.

The artists, all but one of whom are from out of state, are planning to come to Arkansas and make presentations to the committee in June, Naumann said at a meeting of the steering committee Thursday.

The project will likely be completed toward the end of 2022, Naumann said. Hutchinson, a Republican, has said he is committed to replacing the statues before he leaves office in January 2023.