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Name:
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Swimmer27
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Subject:
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'Falling Star'
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Date:
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6/13/2009 7:42:02 AM
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Kinda ironic that this story appears today after the boy was hit by another one yesterday.
Kendra Carter
06-13-2009
SYLACAUGA — Almost everyone knows the story of Ann Hodges, the woman struck by a falling meteorite while she napped in her home.
Hodges was hit Nov. 30, 1954, after the 8-pound meteorite came through her ceiling, bounced off another object and hit her in the hip.
The meteorite fell nearly 55 years ago, and this week, a marble sculpture inspired by the story was installed in front of City Hall.
“The whole thing inspired me because it seems like there’s — everybody kind of knows about Miss Hodges, but there was another piece that fell on the road that this guy found,” said Don Lawler, the Kentucky sculptor who created the piece.
Lawler is referring to farmer Julius K. McKinney, who found a second piece of the meteorite on a dirt road the day after Hodges was hit. According to the Encyclopedia of Alabama, McKinney sold the rock to the Smithsonian and purchased a small farm and a used car.
“To me, that kind of just struck me like fame and fortune,” Lawler said. “The fortune, like the one the guy found on the road, was a real quiet part of the story that he just took the money and bought a small farm with it.
“But … the one that fell through the roof and hit the woman on the hip, she didn’t get any money out of it, she gave it away eventually, but it propelled her from a land of anonymity to fame instantly,” he said.
After the incident, Hodges’ story appeared in newspapers, magazines and on television. Hodges, the only person known to have been hit by a meteorite, also made an appearance on the television show “I've Got a Secret.”
Lawsuits were filed over the meteorite, and eventually, Hodges donated the rock to the Alabama Museum of Natural History in 1956.
“It’s kind of interesting that it wasn’t a necessarily happy story — the fame wasn’t — and whereas the guy who sold his, that (story) has a nice, happy ending to it,” Lawler said. “So you have this one event that touched two lives in very profound ways, but in very different ways.”
Lawler and his wife, Meg White, had heard about Sylacauga white marble and about the Alabama Marble quarry and decided to see if they could find it.
When they did find it, Lawler purchased the slab that would later become the sculpture, aptly titled “Falling Star.”
He said when he was in Sylacauga after visiting the quarry, he met with Mayor Sam Wright and Sylacauga Arts Council President Ted Spears.
“I enjoyed the meeting quite a bit,” he said. “We were talking quite a bit about the history of the town and stuff.”
When he returned to Stephensport, Ky., Lawler began to do some Internet research about the city and found the Hodges’ meteorite story. He said he started drawing sketches for the piece and after finding an idea he liked, he began carving the marble.
He said it took him around 10 weeks to actually carve the piece. Lawler, who said he’d known about the Marble Festival but wasn’t able to attend, said he wanted city officials to see the finished piece and sent a photo of it via e-mail.
“It absolutely hit their imagination,” he said. “They loved it.”
The “Falling Star” was purchased for $5,000, plus transportation costs, by the Marble Festival Committee, with donations solicited by the Sylacauga Arts Council.
On Wednesday morning, the sculpture was installed in front of City Hall. Street Department superintendent Tommy Woolley and other department employees, along with Lawler, put the piece in place.
“They had a really good crew with all the right equipment,” he said. “We were in and out within about 2 hours.”
Spears said there will be a formal dedication ceremony in the upcoming months as a part of the city’s 175th anniversary, where the Marble Festival Committee will donate the sculpture to the city
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