Four brightly colored lions are on the loose in Lakeland.
This week the Lakeland Chamber of Commerce installed the hand-painted fiberglass lions at various prominent locations around the suburb as a show of civic pride and support for its schools.
On Thursday, Nov. 10, an official unveiling and ribbon-cutting for one of the lions took place in front of Lakeland City Hall. The lions are representative of the suburb’s school mascot.
Several elected officials were on hand for the event, including Commissioners Jim Atkinson and Richard Gonzales and Mayor Mike Cunningham.
“I think it’s fabulous,” Cunningham said. “We’ve seen several municipalities around here do something similar (horses in Germantown and University of Memphis tigers throughout the area). I believe it’s an opportunity to bring the city closer together.”
Lakeland resident and independent artist Megan Dupuy designed and created the art for the City Hall lion, which features Garner Lake bordered by trees and houses with a blue sky above.
“To come up with the design, I actually polled Lakeland citizens on some Facebook pages and took the top three responses: our tree canopies, Garner Lake and our community,” she said.
As a nod to the Lakeland School System (LSS), two of the lions were installed this week at Lakeland Elementary School at 10050 Oak Seed Lane and Lakeland Preparatory School at 5020 Lions Crest Drive.
The fourth lion sits at the International Harvester Park Managerial Clubhouse at 4523 Canada Road.
LSS Superintendent Ted Horrell and Lakeland City Manager Michael Walker approved the locations.
All of the artists involved in creating the designs for the various lions were at Thursday’s event. LPS art teachers Jared Parham and Rachel Nanney worked with students to design and paint the prep school and IH Clubhouse lions, while LES art teachers Karen Cross and Stephanie Robinson supervised the work on the elementary school lion, which features about 1,000 student hand prints.
“We purchased these lions back in 2019, and we tossed around different ideas of letting businesses purchase and sponsor them. But then COVID came, so that became a little trickier. So we decided we were going to donate them to the schools and the city,” Brittney Buchanan Lakeland Chamber of Commerce executive director, said.
Chris Woods Construction, which built the middle and high school phases of Lakeland Preparatory School, donated the installation of the lions. Wright Construction supplied the concrete bases, and Phillips Auto Body supplied the lion’s protective clear coats.
“This was definitely a team effort of a lot of people giving their time and energy,” Buchanan said.
The chamber has a fifth lion that will likely go in front of Fireworks City at the Canada Road-Interstate 40 interchange. The original idea for the lions came from Kevin Bailey, general manager of Fireworks City.
“We talked about doing this, so I contacted the University of Memphis because they have tigers all over town,” Bailey said. “The lady at the university who handled it for them when they had their 100th anniversary told me who to contact.”
Buchanan hopes other Lakeland businesses will purchase and sponsor more lions around the suburb.