TPA Newsboy finds home
Life-size statue graces Austin headquarters
He’s finally come to life and taken up residence at the Texas Press Association headquarters at 718 W. Fifth St. in Austin.
Motorists can wave to him as they drive by and passersby can stop and admire him. He, of course, is the TPA newsboy, a life-size bronze statue that has a permanent home after a year and a half.
Houston sculptor Bridgette Mongeon created the newsboy as part of the commemoration of the association’s 125th anniversary in 2005. The statue is a tribute to the industry’s early days when boys hawked newspapers on street corners and shouted the day’s news to potential customers.
Mongeon, a self-described “artist, sculptor, writer, educator, wife and mother,” spent more than eight months on the project, which she completed in May 2005. She documented her progress in a weblog with more than 30 entries showing the TPA newsboy at every stage along the way.
The TPA newsboy was modeled after then 11-year-old Houstonian Dustin Lee, the son of Mongeon’s friend.
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His attire is styled after period clothing that real newsboys wore and he holds a copy of the Texas Press Messenger, TPA’s official publication.The newsboy was stored until the permanent location at the TPA Austin office was prepared and he was installed last month.
The TPA newsboy is the second newspaper-industry sculpture for Mongeon who also was contracted to create the Houston Chronicle’s Jesse Award.
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