From the TRA:

An Appeal to Help Fund
The Theodore Roosevelt Rough Rider Statue
For Oyster Bay

The Rotary Club of Oyster Bay is working to install a “bully” statue of TR as Rough Rider. Cast from an original mold created in 1922 by sculptor A. Phimister Proctor, the 12-foot-tall figure is to be positioned at the entrance to the Oyster Bay Hamlet. Once installed, the statue will be given to the Theodore Roosevelt Association; the Association will then be responsible for its maintenance.

Below, in a message from the Rotary Committee overseeing the project, you will find more details. Please consider giving generously to this worthy endeavor. The plan is to unveil the statue this fall, and to dedicate it to Dr. John Gable.

Kind regards,

Norman Parsons, President
Theodore Roosevelt Association


A Message from the Rotary Club of Oyster Bay

Dear Friends of President Theodore Roosevelt:

The Members of The Rotary Club of Oyster Bay have accepted the challenge to bring a statute of Theodore Roosevelt as the “Rough Rider” home to Oyster Bay as a permanent memorial for the Centennial of Rotary International. With the guidance and encouragement of Dr. John Gable, we found the project to be feasible, the community found it acceptable, and the Committee procured a prominent location at the entrance to the hamlet of Oyster Bay.

We need to raise $300,000.

While enthusiastic locals have started to make their own contributions, the Committee must face the reality that the Hamlet of Oyster Bay has a very small population. Therefore, we must reach out nationally to all friends of President Roosevelt to help finance the project. We ask you to be as generous as you can with the knowledge that the statue is to be deeded to the Theodore Roosevelt Association. Any funds raised in excess of the cost of placing the statue will be turned over to the Association for use in the care and maintenance of the statue.

We are pleased to announce that Mr. Norman Parsons, President of the Theodore Roosevelt Association, has joined our Advisory Committee. We appreciate his support and will be guided by his counsel.

Please make your tax-exempt contribution by addressing a check to the Oyster Bay Rotary Foundation (Statue Fund), P.O. Box 277, Oyster Bay, NY, 11771.

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Images of other works by the sculptor A. Phimister Proctor have been posted by the Plains Indian Museum of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center

Here's Proctor in his studio, circa 1921, and here he is in frontier garb. A museum founded by his grandson has a bio.

He was noted for his animals, according to the Amon Carter Museum:

Proctor's genius in depicting wild animals can be seen in the famous tigers in front of Princeton University's Nassau Hall. His sculpture on various buildings in New York's Zoological Park (now the Bronx Zoo) portrays monkeys, elephants, rhinoceros, and frogs, all in a natural, yet lively style. His majestic Lions flank Pittsburgh's Frick Building, and four large Buffalo guard the expanse of the Q Street Bridge in Washington, D.C. His last great monumental commission, Mustangs, resides on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin.

He did the great buffaloes on the Dumbarton Bridge in Washington.

I rather like this bear and rabbit of his, and this moose.

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Rough Rider-inspired cover art accompanies a rendition of the rag "Blaze Away" offered by Perfessor Bill about midway down his page under Cakewalks, Folk Rags and Marches.

A Dixieland clip of "Blaze Away" comes by way of Acker Bilk and his Paramount Jazz Band.