Published: 9/18/2022 6:01:57 PM
Modified: 9/18/2022 6:01:17 PM
LEVERETT — Gearing up to celebrate the town’s semiquincentennial in 2024, members of the Leverett 250th Committee are launching a logo contest on the same day that a new tile mural will be dedicated at the Leverett Library.
The Sept. 24 dedication ceremony for artist Judith Inglese’s mural “Past is Present is Future” runs from 3 to 5 p.m. at the 75 Montague Road site and will feature musicians and light refreshments.
As the dedication of the mural on the library’s exterior entrance wall takes place, the committee, in recognizing artistic talent in town, is encouraging current and past adult residents to submit a commemorative logo design that will be used in advertising, promotion and fundraising items, such as T-shirts, leading up to and during the anniversary year.
Entrants should fill out an online form at bit.ly/3Lqf5qV and submit a drawing via the town’s Celebrate 250th webpage at bit.ly/3diLgMB.
People can also submit designs and forms at the Leverett Town Hall, Leverett Library and Leverett Village Co-op. The deadline for submission is Dec. 14, with a winner to be selected and then announced in early 2023.
Committee member Ann Tweedy said the winning logo will be based on a popular vote, with all the submissions to be posted on the town website’s 250th page with a link to vote. Paper ballots will be available at the three drop-off locations, as well.
When Leverett celebrated its bicentennial in 1974, the logo, or bicentennial symbol as it was called, was designed by Stella Schoenhaut.
Featuring a tree in the foreground, with the town’s name written in script in the leaves and the number 200 written in the roots, and a background of rolling hills and a picket fence, a history book coinciding with the bicentennial states that the logo “denotes the growth of Leverett, well nourished by the strong roots put down 200 years ago by the early settlers.”
Inglese, who has created public art murals inside and outside buildings in Amherst, Washington D.C., and Rockville, Maryland, is expected to be at the dedication.
The mural shows people in the environment enjoying bicycling, kayaking and hiking, with individuals facing forward to represent the time spanning from Indigenous to colonial to modern. The mural presents Leverett as a hilltown, topped with white doves flying over the town’s most well-known feature, the New England Peace Pagoda, while at the base are ponds, wetlands wildlife and activities like fishing.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.