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A red brick wall at the Joplin History and Mineral Museum has been transformed into a colorful garden of coneflowers and other native plants with bees and butterflies flitting about thanks to an art teacher and area art students.

Christine Allgood at the museum arranged for a mural as part of the native prairie project that is being done there and in other areas of city parks. She arranged a planting early this year using seeds of native plants outside the museum and plans to have volunteers help plant native shrubs and flowers later this spring.

She is working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Missouri Prairie Foundation to do the projects.

For the mural, she was assisted by Nellie Mitchell, an art teacher at Carl Junction High School. Two of Mitchell’s students, Avari Fifer and Olivia Wobken, designed the mural.

Students with the National Honor Society or National Arts Honor Societies at Carl Junction, Joplin and Baxter Springs, Kansas, along with Allgood and Mitchell and some other adults, painted the mural. Some of the students also are painting benches at the museum with pollinator and native flower imagery.

“It’s bright but we wanted it that way for people on Seventh Street to see it and attract their attention to the museum,” Allgood said.

Wobken said she wanted to be involved because “I am really passionate about wildlife and nature.”

“I did a lot of research because I wanted to design the mural with only plants and pollinators I knew were native to Missouri,” she said.

Fifer said they made a digital version of the design that was projected and drawn onto the wall as a guide for painting. That took about two hours with six students including Fifer and Wobken and three adults tracing the images.

The students included a lot of detail in the photo so that it would transfer to the wall well, because the brick wall had grooves and tuckpointed seams that would alter the images.

Wobken said the artists also had to account in the design for the drain pipes and beams on the side of the building.

There were more than 30 student volunteers who painted to get the mural done in about two days.

“It would not look the way it does without all of their talent,” Mitchell said.

Funding and supplies for the effort came from several donors. Mitchell had obtained a grant last year from the Casey’s Cash for Classrooms program for an art project that was used. Her husband, who works at Ozark Center, obtained their help with the costs. Allgood also obtained assistance with materials for ABE Painting and Spectrum Paint in Joplin.

Wobken and Fifer said they want their families to see the mural and plan family trips to take in the view.

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