DAVID MAMARIL HOROWITZ

david.horowitz@bgdailynews.com

For three years, community members have worked on a sculpture of Natcher Elementary’s jaguar mascot – and this past week, the newly completed neighborhood feature was unveiled.

The sculpture, known as J.J. the Jaguar Giant – with enough seating for an entire school class, and a time capsule in its tail – sits on greenway space by the gravel loop near Natcher’s ballfield. School principal Matt Thornhill, who led the project, described it as a unique outdoor classroom setting in nature, a learning space separated from technology.

And – formerly an art teacher, but never a carpenter – Thornhill also pointed to the school’s focus on centering leadership at Natcher as a FranklinCovey Leader in Me Legacy School. Part of that, he said, is to “sharpen the saw” on a personal level – and leading by example, as principal, was one of his goals.

But more widely than that, another aspect is to “identify genius in every kid, and help them find that belonging, help them find something that they’re good at, so they can let their light shine,” he said.

The first year was dedicated to collecting material: Residents donated discarded wood from swimming decks and fences. A shop using mantels shared leftover cedar chunks. Bowling Green Municipal Utilities provided broken-down telephone poles, which were buried beneath the sculpture as beam support.

Thornhill had conceived the idea inspired by a trip to the Bernheim Forest and Arboretum in Clermont, where he and his family went to see the giant trolls made by renowned Danish recycle artist Thomas Dambo. Thornwill later returned with his students to share the inspiration.

Around 140-150 people – students and student groups, families part of the school, staff members and numerous others – made it happen. It was additionally personal for Thornhill, whose own family became a part of the project, with his father refusing to miss a single day.

“The goal was to try to get as many people involved as possible,” he said.

Thornhill recalled Dambo’s trolls, which were known to involve communities in their construction.

“I was … inspired by how he brought a large community together to build them,” Thornhill said.

Construction was completed June 28, paint followed the next day, and a giant jaguar flag was hung July 1. On Wednesday, Thornhill put the location into the Geocaching app, where – once the submission is approved – people will be able to use phones as GPS receivers in a virtually guided scavenger hunt to find the wooden jaguar.