AP News, April 5th, 2007
The Statue of Liberty hatches out of New York's submission for the White House's annual State Egg Display. Pennsylvania's depicts Punxsutawney Phil on Groundhog Day. Montana's features a delicately painted landscape.
And Wyoming's? It's a crude drawing of an egg on skis amid a scattering of trees. It looks like it was done in crayon by a 9-year-old, though the artist is a college student.
But here's what really has Wyoming officials boiling: The guy who made it is from Illinois.
American Egg Board officials said they couldn't find a Wyoming artist to design the egg unveiled this week for the White House display, so they chose the son of an employee of the egg board.
That was news to officials in Gov. Dave Freudenthal's office, who say they were never asked for help.
"In the future, we hope that the White House gets a hold of the Wyoming Arts Council, that we would be happy to work with them," governor's spokeswoman Cara Eastwood said Wednesday. "Wyoming has a wealth of artistic talent."
Camellia El-Antably, deputy manager of the arts council, said her office could have helped find an artist, but it was never contacted.
Asked her opinion about the "Wyoming" egg on display at the White House, El-Antably said, "I note that most of the other eggs, there's some real thought put into how they represent the state. And we hope to see Wyoming represented with the same amount of thought in the future."
A White House press release states that the egg board selects artists from each state and the District of Columbia to decorate eggs in recognition of the White House Easter Egg Roll. Children have come to the White House for the egg roll since 1878, but the state egg display has only been around since 1994.
Christine Bushway of Alexandria, Va., director of state programs for the egg board, said Wednesday that the board first contacts egg promotional groups to try to get recommendations for an egg artist to represent each state. However, she said, no such promotional group exists in Wyoming.
Bushway said the next step was to contact the International Egg Art Guild to try to find an artist, but "they didn't have anyone to recommend for Wyoming." At least some of Wyoming's eggs from previous years were made by Wyoming artists, but Bushway said the board tries to get new artists each year.
So the board turned to Philip M. LeDonne of Elmhurst, Ill., whose mother works for the board as an "administrative person," Bushway said.
An attempt to reach LeDonne for comment on Wednesday was unsuccessful.
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On the Net:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/easter/2007/eggsbystate/index.html#
