Old tires become snowman
Staff writer
Travelers along 290th Rd. at night can see a big, lighted snowman that Dale Klenda made out of tractor tires and placed at the intersection with Quail Creek Rd.
The snowman survived last Wednesday’s windstorm.
“I figured it would be down on the ground,” he said, “but it was fine.”
Klenda’s wife, Andrea, urged him to make some kind of winter display to place on their land along 290th Rd.
One day, he spotted three farm tires lying on the ground at his father’s farm. They were lined up like snowballs, sized just right for making a snowman.
The largest was a big tractor tire; the second largest, a utility tractor tire; and the third, a swather tire.
Klenda decided to make a snowman with the tires but didn’t know how to erect it on his property.
Across the road was a straight, almost dead, tree on property owned by neighbor Don Meysing.
Meysing liked Klenda’s idea and granted permission to use his tree.
Klenda drilled holes through each tire and put a white pipe through the holes to hold the tires together. He placed a regular car tire horizontally on the top tire and placed a black 10-gallon barrel on top for a hat.
He got white paint from a toxic waste disposal site in Marion to paint the tires and bought lights to outline each tire and the top hat. He installed a solar panel to power the lights.
Klenda trimmed a few branches from the tree and attached the pipe to the tree.
“Wow, that is really big,” Meysing said when he saw it.
“Well, that way people will think you did it,” Klenda told him.
Word quickly spread, however, that the snowman was Klenda’s doing. This is the second year he has put it up. He gets many comments about the display.
“I was in Salina one day, and someone local told me how much they liked it,” he said.
The snowman spreads a bit of cheer during the dreary days of winter.