“We wanted a bison that was in the body position of moving forward, suggesting that rugged, individualistic, determined, stand-your-ground Bucknell spirit,” says Richard Rinehart, director of Bucknell’s Samek Art Museum. “A king of the plains, leading the herd forward, and prepared for anything with a stolid determination in his eye — I think we found that.”

Jeff Puff ’75, who spear-headed a campaign among his classmates to donate the statue, echoes that sentiment. “We were looking for something that conveyed the leadership, bravery and courage that Bucknell University exemplifies — all those traits that are valuable as we go through our lives,” he says. “To the extent that a mascot can convey those things, I think that this does.”

For Puff, the new bison brings full circle a legacy begun shortly before he enrolled at the University. It was in 1970 that the stone bison statue, which until recently stood in the same location, was installed and dedicated at Homecoming, as a gift of the Class of 1942.

A photo taken at that dedication ceremony now hangs at Puff’s cabin in Wolfeboro, N.H. He likes it not only because it reminds him of his alma mater but also because among the supporters smiling around the statue are his parents, Charles ’42 and Isabel Clark Puff ’43, who served on the fundraising committee for the Class of 1942 bison. Inspired by his parents’ gift and the joy it has given generations of Bucknellians, Puff contacted Bucknell about the possibility of raising funds to bring a new bison statue to campus and began a campaign at his class’ 40th Reunion in support of the project.

The stone Class of ’42 bison has been moved to a new home near MacDonald Commons on the University’s South Campus — a location selected both to preserve the statue (which has been damaged and repaired several times) and to make a statement about class identity and legacy for the seniors who live in the nearby South Campus Apartments.

“The 1942 bison now stands in an area of campus that’s a new hub of activity,” Rinehart says. “Bringing our stalwart veteran bison to that location brings a lot of Bucknell’s history — not only its history as an institution, but also the history of students and alumni, because it’s a class gift. It really indicates that legacy of remembering Bucknell.

“Bucknell now has two bison sculptures bookending campus, in a way standing like twin sentinels on each side,” he adds.

Artistic and appropriate

While it was funded by members of the Class of 1975, final decisions about the design and placement of the new statue were made by the Campus Art Advisory Committee, which oversees all permanent art installations on campus, indoor and outdoor. The committee, chaired by Rinehart, reviewed some 70 artists’ proposals before commissioning Craig Campbell, an artist experienced not only in sculpting realistic animals but also in creating works for permanent display outdoors.

“We were interested in artistic excellence and appropriateness for our setting — the look of our campus and the visual legacy that we want to leave,” Rinehart says. “There were some proposals that would have been fantastic art projects for another context, but we were thinking, ‘This is not just another sculpture coming to campus, but this is also our mascot.’ ”

“All the lines tell the story of the dynamic tension in this piece,” Campbell says of the new statue, which is 1.5 times the size of a real-life North American bison and weighs 1,500 pounds. “This is determination, this is achievement, this is strength — those were the things that I wanted the attitude of this piece to communicate.”

The placement of the two statues follow last fall’s installation of a bust of Edward McKnight Brawley, Class of 1875, Bucknell’s first African-American alumnus, outside the Vaughan Literature Building. Before that, the last permanent outdoor artwork arrived on campus about a decade earlier, when a pair of stone tablets was hung in the entryway of the Rooke Science Center. The new bison statue was dedicated during a Home-coming ceremony Nov. 3.