Billy the Bluegill gets a summertime makeover

ORR- Any famous icon can benefit from a makeover at one time or another, and recently that time came for none other than Billy the Bluegill of Orr.
The iconic statue, now over four decades old, has received numerous facelifts over the years, and this time former Orr School art teacher Lyn Reed took on the task of spiffing the creature up.
The project was funded through the Orr Lions Club and numerous donors, and club president Tom Antikainen said that the Lions were the originators of the statue.
“The Orr Lions Club raised funds and had it done in 1981 or 1982,” said Antikainen. “I am sure the project was brought up by then Lions president Will Miller, who was owner of Island View Resort at that time.”
It may have been an article by Minneapolis Tribune columnist Ron Schara in 1978 that helped to establish Orr statewide as a bluegill mecca and lent momentum to the birth of Billy the Bluegill. Here’s an excerpt from Schara’s column:
“Those of you who have not discovered the joys of trophy bluegills may only remember Orr as a small clearing in the timber between Virginia and International Falls. If so, you have a poor memory.”
“If you’re looking for giant bluegills and you stumble into, of all places, Orr, you’ve come to the right place. My friend and television personality Chuck Ross of WCCO-TV stumbled onto Pelican Lake a month or so ago and returned gushing with enthusiasm. If you know Ross, you know he could stumble over a skunk and fall into a sweet bed of roses. In the case of Pelican Lake, his stumbling produced 60 or so bluegills that totaled 50 pounds or so. The largest, as I recall, went over 1-1/4 pounds.
“Ron Anderson, the town’s businessman, verified the lake’s lunker bluegill reputation.
“‘As far as I am concerned, it’s the best bluegill lake in the state,’ claimed Anderson.”
According to the popular online site Roadside America, the work is credited to sculptor Gordon Shumaker, who created other Minnesota giants such as White Bear’s Chevy dealer Polar Bear, Smokey Bear in International Falls, and Alexandria’s Viking “Big Ole.”
The bluegill is famous as a spot for picture taking by tourists from around the country. A Trip Advisor reviewer from Wellington, Kan. wrote, “This is an iconic photo site for those fishing on Pelican Lake. A classic ‘we were here’ memento.” In fact, getting pictures with the bluegill is a family tradition for many, such as this Trip Advisor user, who wrote, “I get my picture with my hand in his mouth during vacations for the last 25 years. What a wonderful welcome after driving from LaPorte Indiana. You know you have arrived when you see the bluegill!”

Painting Billy
“I was the art teacher, and I started in Orr in 1980 and worked there for 30 years,” Reed said. “Ron Maki, the art teacher in Cook, had always done it in the past. A teacher, a friend of mine, he said to me ‘You know, they’re looking for somebody to do the fish and your name came up.’ So I thought I’d give it a try.”
Reed met with Maki a couple of times to find out what kind of paint he used (one coat sign paint) and how he prepared it for painting.
“He said we have to scrape it and sand it all down,” Reed said. “There’s no electricity there, so I had to figure out how to do that. I decided to use my battery-operated drill and I bought some wire brushes to go on the end and did it that way.”
Once uncovered, Reed discovered a good pattern used by Maki that she could follow.
“I kind of followed what he did and just painted,” she said. “I changed the colors a little bit and made them a little brighter, and I layered it to get a nice effect on the fins. There are four layers of color, so the other colors kind of come through. You can’t tell that from a distance, but it gives it a lot more depth and makes it a lot more interesting.”
Reed said she spent about six to seven hours a day working on the paint job, about 80 hours total.
“I just kept going,” she said. “Every day I thought it’s going to be done in a couple of days, but then a couple of days would come and go and it was a couple more days. It did take longer than what I thought. You have to go around each of those scales, and that was a bit time consuming.”
But the work in progress didn’t stop the parade of Billy fans lining up for photos.
“It was nice because lots of people stopped,” Reed said. “Sometimes you can have as many as ten people stop from all over – Canada, Illinois, Florida – it’s amazing how many people come from different places and stop there.”
And the former art teacher drew some local attention as well.
“A lot of my students, because I taught so many kids in that area, they would stop and say, ’Mrs. Reed, you’re painting a fish!’ So it was kind of a fun thing to do. I enjoyed it.”
While friendly faces were some of the rewards, the job had its challenges as well, from heat and storms to bugs and trains.
“I made the mistake of putting sunscreen on my forehead the first day, and the sunscreen melted and dripped into my eyes, and I thought well I won’t do that again,” Reed laughed. “A lot of those days the temperature was 84, 86 one day, so we got pretty hot out there. And then for some reason the flies were biting at that time, which is a strange time. And then one day thunderstorms came through every couple of hours. I’d just get started and then another storm would come through.”
Wind was another nagging element, as it would often cause newly-applied paint to drip. Reed kept a rag soaked with paint thinner handy to wipe away the errant blobs.
The interruptions caused by trains, particularly northbound ones, was something Reed hadn’t thought about when taking on the job.
“They blow their whistle right at the fish when they’re going north,” she said. “A few times I was up on the ladder, and you kind of get busy with what you’re doing, and all of a sudden without realizing the train is right there only about 20 feet away from you the whistle blows a few times. I thought, ‘Oh good golly' and I nearly fell right off. In the beginning I thought they were doing that on purpose because they’re seeing me there, but I think they have to do it because the crossing was right there.”
Reed is glad that she took on the project and is happy with how Billy looks with his new coat of paint.
“It turned out really nice, and I didn’t get overwhelmed by how big it was,” she said. “As an art teacher, like with Ron Maki, we’re kind of jacks of all trades. We know how to apply colors. We know how to do fine lines and thick lines. It’s just a matter of putting those skills to work to do a big project like that.“
Antikainen said that the total cost of the project was $9,544.32, and he thanked the numerous donors who helped to defray the costs. Those donors include: Leiding Township, Pelican Lake Resort Association, Orr American Legion, Frank’s Marine, RE/MAX Lake Country, Pelican Bay Inc., Jerry and Amy Shuster, T. Pattenn Café, Deer Lodge, Ryan’s Rustic Railings and Furniture, Inc., and Lumber-Orr-Hardware.
Additional donations are welcomed and can be sent to Orr Lions, P.O. Box 213, Orr MN 55771.