This Christmas, just like every Christmas since 1967, there will be light on a seven-story statue of Jesus that overlooks Eureka Springs from Magnetic Mountain.
Two floodlights pointing toward the Christ of the Ozarks are scheduled to be turned back on around sundown tonight .
The lights were turned off last month - for the first time in 45 years - to save money on electricity.
The statue is part of the 700-acre campus of the Great Passion Play. The Passion Play closed for good after its Oct. 27 performance. Theproperty will be taken over by Cornerstone Bank in January in lieu of foreclosure proceedings, said Charles Cross, the bank’s president.
Private donors have volunteered to pay the electric bill and turn the lights back on at least through the Christmas season, said Keith Butler, chairman of the nonprofit Elna M. Smith Foundation, which operated the Passion Play.
Butler said the electric bill for the two 10,000-watt floodlights is about $200 a month in the winter. Also, Butler said he learned Thursday that a new electrical ballast is needed. The device, which stabilizes the current in anelectric circuit, will cost another $184, he said.
“Volunteers have picked up the part and are getting it hand-delivered to us by tomorrow,” Butler said Thursday.
Butler wouldn’t reveal the names of the donors but confirmed that they included both churches and individuals.
“It’s a symbol for a lot of people, and it’s important to a lot of people’s faith,” Eureka Springs Alderman James De-Vito said of the statue.
The statue also serves as a landmark for people who get turned around in the tourist town, which has winding streets.
“North, south, east and west don’t work in Eureka Springs,” DeVito said. “It’s either up hill or downhill. The Crescent Hotel or the big Jesus.”
The hotel and statue overlook the city from different mountains. The Crescent Hotel is on West Mountain.
Christ of the Ozarks is Arkansas’ largest and bestknown sculpture, said Ralph Wilcox, national register andsurvey coordinator for the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program. The statue, which can be seen from miles away, weighs more than 1,000 tons.
It was designed by Emmet Sullivan, an apprentice to Gutzon Borglum , sculptor of The Shrine of Democracy on Mount Rushmore.
Gerald L.K. Smith came up with the idea for the Christ of the Ozarks as well as the Passion Play. Both were built by the foundation that bears his wife’s name: the Elna M. Smith Foundation. The statue was completed in 1966.
Gerald L.K. Smith, who was known for his far-right activism, ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate and president several times. His last presidential race was in 1956. The couple moved to Eureka Springs in 1964. Gerald L.K. Smith died in 1976. Elna Smith died in 1981.
A fund has been established to help keep the statue lit for years, Butler said.
More information is available at greatpassionplay.org/ christ-of-the-ozarks.html.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 12/14/2012