As far back as I can remember, when I went to visit Pine Bluff, Arkansas, where both sets of grandparents lived when I was growing up…I would see the Little Miss Sunbeam girl swinging on the billboard…on Harding and Main.
She has been there for ages…well, since my mom was about 5 or 6…
All this time I have thought my grandfather, a commercial artist~ Robert Hicks, aka Paka~ created Little Miss Sunbeam. He didn’t. But he painted her for years and years and years. And here’s what he did create…he came up with the mechanism to make her swing and created the first billboard to have a moving part. So he did create the Little Miss Sunbeam billboard in Pine Bluff, swing and all.
For years after he retired, he would be called to paint another Little Miss Sunbeam. He painted her little face the very best, in my humble opinion. The original swinging Little Miss Sunbeam is in a museum there in Pine Bluff.
He also drew a lot of the Red Goose Shoes signs and was the walking advertisement for them at times. He would go to the center of town in different places, make a goose call, and a live goose would follow him around to advertise Red Goose Shoes. How cute is that?
He had a job offer to New York, which was a big deal for anyone, but especially for someone in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. He turned it down and stayed right there at Condray Signs working hard, doing his best.
Paka and Mema, my grandmother, were in the Actors Guild and acted in all the plays in town. THAT must be where I get all my drama. Ha! I didn’t remember knowing about their acting until this past week. I always knew Paka should be an actor…he was always so entertaining…so funny.
I’m gathering old pictures of Mema and Paka to post sometime. They were wonderful people. I have never stopped missing them.
Have any of you ever seen the billboard in Pine Bluff?