Noon Series are free, no registration required
12 noon, Friday, Feb. 21st, HASP classroom
“Follow the Yellow Brick Road” …….to Holland! Sally Laukitis, Executive Director of the Holland Area Visitors Bureau, will take us on the 5-year journey that resulted in the life-sized bronze “Wizard of Oz” statues gracing the north side of Herrick District Library. Cast in bronze, the statues are taken from illustrations of the original characters as depicted by the artist, W.W. Denslow, in the original Wonderful Wizard of Oz. According to Robert Baum, great-grandson of Wizard of Oz author, L. Frank Baum, many characters in the book are reminiscent of real-life people Baum knew as he wrote parts of the book while staying at his family’s cottage, The Sign of the Goose, in Macatawa.
Laukitis, an English Literature major at DePauw University, grew up in Holland hearing the story of Baum and the Wizard of Oz connection, and remembers when the “Munchkins” gathered at Holland’s former Point West restaurant in 1989 for a “Munchkin” convention.