2 Thursday, October 3, 2024 BATTLE CREEK SHOPPER NEWS http://www.thebattlecreekshopper.com
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Please recycle this newspaperSee MURAL on 3SHELLY KEHRLE-SULSER
Executive Editor
The afternoon gathering at a
prominent, downtown Galesburg
wall became a community reunion of
sorts as the family of the late Billy
Gillespie, Mayor Linda Marble, City
Council member Judy Lemon and
citizens helped professional mural-
ist and Galesburg-Augusta graduate
Patrick Hershberger complete a new
1,000-foot mural at GMC Catering at
16 E. Michigan Ave.
“This is the most exciting thing for
this city,” said Marble as she partici-
pated in Saturday’s community paint
session. “We are so excited because
this is a tribute to Billy Gillespie who
was an icon in the City of Galesburg
and I’m happy for Jerry and Tammy
VanderWeele to get this on their wall
and just the city because this is just
really an exciting thing to help deco-
rate our town and make it look so
pretty and at the same time, just cher-
ish Billy’s life, his love of bicycles
and bicyclists.”
Marble, who had never painted a
mural before, said she was enjoying
the experience helping to bring the
colorful wall to life with the shapes
of children riding bikes while wear-
ing different colored bicycle helmets.
On the far right of the mural called
“Pedal Toward the Future” is a ren-
dering of the late Billy Gillespie as
he worked on a bike in his red and
black checked, flannel shirt.
One of the kids featured - the girl
with the pink helmet and Kalamazoo
Bicycle Club logo - was even
inspired by Hershberger’s sister.New 1,000 foot mural project draws people together in downtown Galesburg
The community turned out to help finish the Bike Friendly Kalamazoo mural at
the Saturday community painting session. (Shopper News photo by Shelly Kehrle-Sulser)
Galesburg Mayor Linda Marble, left, joins the community painting session
Saturday at 16 E. Michigan Avenue. At right is Galesburg-Augusta Middle
School student Lily Rabideau. “I think it’s pretty nice,” said Lily. “I love painting.”It’s all within view of Billy
Gillespie’s former shop at 63 E.
Michigan Avenue.
The project was instigated by
Lemon, said both Hershberger and
Jerry VanderWeele.
“We were contacted by Judy
Lemon who is on the bicycle com-
mittee and big in the community
about possibly putting a mural on a
building,” he said, “and this started
maybe a year ago and we own two
buildings here and we said ‘this
building here is the one we prefer to
have it on’ and we were all for it.”
Bike Friendly Kalamazoo, said
VanderWeele, secured the grant,
put out a call for artists and the
VanderWeeles chose Hershberger’s
design idea without knowing whose
it was.Hershberger, who has another
mural in Galesburg from early in his
career, painted most of the mural
himself starting last Thursday and
left the lower portions to the public
to paint at his scheduled community
paint sessions Saturday afternoon.
He, too, knew Billy Gillespie, from
his childhood years in and around
Galesburg and Augusta.
“This mural, you know, there
is a focus on bike safety and the
joys of cycling,” said Hershberger,
a past chair of the Bike Friendly
Kalamazoo Art Committee. “But I
also wanted to, like, give a shout out
to Billy from Billy’s Bike Shop. You
can actually look right across the