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Susan Beasy Latto, slatto@d.umn.edu
315 Darland Administration Bldg.
1049 University Drive
Duluth, MN 55812
(218) 726-8830 Cell: (218) 348-5688
Fax: (218) 726-7413
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA DULUTH
March 5, 2001
Contact:
Susan Beasy Latto, Director
of Public Relations 726-8830
Pam Griffin, Coordinator, UMD Access Center 726-6101
Snow Sculpture to Promote
Disability Awareness
UMD "Access For All" Group Builds Snow Replica of New FDR
Statue
UMD students have enlisted the assistance of well-known Duluth snow sculptor Harry Welty. Work on the sculpture will take place from 1-4 p.m. on Monday, March 5, and will begin again at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, March 6. Work will continue until the statue is completed.
The new statue in Washington D.C. is an addition to the FDR Memorial and shows the wartime president in a wheelchair. After contracting polio, Franklin Delano Roosevelt designed his own wheelchair and used it for more than two decades; but he was almost never photographed in it, because he feared Americans would see his disability as a sign of weakness. The new statue depicts Roosevelt covered with a cloak as he sits in a chair. Two small wheels are visible in the back of the chair. The new statue vividly illustrates that a disability doesn't get in the way of achieving greatness and leadership.