A Carousel for Missoula

Meet the Ponies

Leo the Lionheart:

Jim Dunlap calls himself the "one armed carver of Leo the Lionheart." Which he was.

After a serious injury to his arm in January, 1994, Dunlap started work on the Missoula Lions Clubs' horse - Leo the Lionheart. The work quickly became "a creative process for Leo and a therapeutic one for me," Dunlap remembered.

"When I see Leo proudly making his rounds with a joyful rider, I think about how we got better together. I suspect the same is true for all of us who were fortunate enough to work on the carousel. In one way or another, we all got better together."

Leo is painted in Lions Club blue and gold, and displays the club emblem on its chest. (The paint job is the work of Marlies Borchers.) Five lion heads are spaced around the saddle and blanket.

The young lion faces on the romance side - the for show side - of the horse wear favorite expressions of Dunlap's grandchildren, Sam and Alex. Look closely for clues to their personalities.

Columbia Belle

Columbia Belle, the lead horse on Missoula's carousel, is a tribute to the blessings bestowed upon Pat and Kitte Robins by their Irish immigrant grandparents.

"All of our opportunities for better educations, better jobs and personal freedom began with those immigrant grandparents," Kitte Robins said. Thus, the American flag tucked under Columbia Belle's saddle blanket and bridle bedecked in shamrocks.

As the lead horse, on the carousel, Columbia Belle is the most embellished. its halter is fitted with two 100-year-old jewels - one red, one blue - donated to A Carousel for Missoula by historian Fred Fried.

The angel behind Columbia Belle's saddle is a tribute to Mary Robins and Mary Keane, mothers of Pat and Kitte. Both women died the year the family designed their horse.

"Angels can also symbolize miracles and the spirit that makes the unbelievable believable," Kitte said. "To us, the carousel project was a miracle project."

The horse's name is a tribute to the Columbia Gardens, the carousel the Robins rode as children in Butte, and which burned on Pat Robins' birthday in 1973. "We consider this horse a direct descendant of the carved wooden horses at the Columbia Gardens," Kitte said.

Everyone who was ever a child in Butte experienced such sadness when Columbia Gardens burned, she said. "We didn't understand that as long as those horses were alive in Chuck Kaparich's imagination, they weren't completely destroyed."

Carver Steve Weiler was given the honor of carving the lead horse, his second pony carved entirely on his own. Bette Largent, an artist at Spokane's Loof carousel, was given the painting assignment, a thank you because she taught Missoula's carousel painters their craft.

Weiler did leave a "signature" on Columbia Belle: One of the shamrocks he changed to a four-leaf clover. Another he used to disguise his children's initials.

Pony information provided by: www.nca-usa.org/psp/Missoula/