Caught at the Crossroads

Where is This: History of the Owl!

 

Each month, The Monument publishes a photo and asks, "Where is this?" This week we received more than just the answer, we received information aobut the history of how the owl came to be up there: Read on:

The "Where is This?" question this week got a lot of response!

The owl is at Pennell Institute on Main Street in Gray, high up in the eaves. Janet Neal of Gray got it first, but lots of people called pretty quick when the paper came out, including Geoff Foster and Yvonne Wilkinson.

The Institute is on the same grounds as Newbegin Gym. As Gray resident Yvonne Wilkinson tells it, she was leaving the voting polls at Newbegin on election day on November 8, and happened to look up and saw the owl. She laughed, she said, because she had not thought of the owl for many years.
Back in the 1980s Pennell was an elementary school. There had been a huge pigeon problem, and there was inches and inches of pigeon droppings on the window sills below the eaves, Ms. Wilkinson said.

The children played near there and with the guano all around, the School District, by whom Ms. Wilkinson was employed at that time, decided to do something about it. The man fixing the clock tower, Dave Davison, had told Ms. Wilkinson that putting some owls up there to scare away the pigeons would work.

"I ordered two owls and [SAD 15 Maintenance Director] George Litrocapes and crew put them up. On voting day when I looked up ands happened to see the owl, I laughed because I hadn't thought of the owls for many years. Seeing it brought me back to those days. And then I opened the paper and there it was!"

Geoff Foster called too. He said that he and Mr. Bennett who still lives in New Gloucester rented a 90 foot crane and installed them. The tower is 87 feet height and the Town didn't have any ladders high enough to install the owls up there.

Nowadays they've got ultrasound owls, flying owls that twirl, and lots of warnings that the plastic owls that just sit there don't work. But Just ask Yvonne Wilkinson and Geoff Foster. The Pennell owls have worked for 20 years, and not a pigeon in sight.