Student Brightens Neligh-Oakdale With New Mural

One of the walls at Neligh-Oakdale is a little brighter this year.

The wall on the west end of the elementary hallway got a new look, thanks to senior Haley Kerkman who painted a colorful and powerful message over the summer.

It states: “Some kids are smarter than you. Some kids have cooler clothes than you. Some kids are better at sports than you. It doesn’t matter. You have your thing too. Be the kid who can get along. Be the kid who is generous. Be the kids who is happy for others. Be the kid who does the right thing. Be the nice kid.”

Special education teacher Susie Loofe came up with the idea for the painted message.

“I copied the picture off that I found on Pinterest, or whatever, and gave it to Denise (Gunderson), and I said, ‘Denise, somebody has to do this.’ I didn’t know who,” Loofe said.

Gunderson, the elementary secretary at East Ward, said she knew exactly who she would ask.

“Haley (Kerkman) was Darcy Metschke’s T.A. last year, and so she freehanded some writing stuff on her bulletin board,” Gunderson said. “She’d stand there and she’d just go. And I’m like, ‘Seriously, Haley, how did you just do that?’ So when Susie asked, I knew I had the perfect person to ask.”

Kerkman said Loofe and Gunderson approached her on the last day of school and asked if she would be willing to take on the project.

‘The conversation came about doing it on the firewall because they’re so white and just out there that they wanted to decorate it with something,” Kerkman said.

The first step was measuring the wall to see just how the quote would fit.

“First, I measured everything out, and it took me like two hours,” Kerkman said. “Mrs. Denise had this one laser thing where I just traced lines because I went over it, and I measured the wall. It was 10 feet up and down and 12 feet wide, so then I decided since there’s a 10-line count, there was a lot of math going into it, deciding how big some lines are because they are more important than others. And by the time that was done, I was able to go on to the letters.”

She started out with black paint for the letters, but decided to liven it up.

“We went to Bomgaars originally just to grab black paint, but I wanted some color on it, so I just picked four pretty colors I saw, and they ended up actually working really well together,” Kerkman said.

She volunteered all of her time and used her favorite brush, the school provided the paint. Start to finish, Kerkman said the entire project took her about 11 to 12 hours to complete.

Gunderson and Loofe were more than pleased with the outcome.

“It turned out awesome,” Gunderson said.

Loofe agreed.

“Oh man, she did a good job on it. It’s an eye opener. I love it,” she said. “In fact, we want another one done on this wall (on the east end of the same hallway), and I’ve also seen little quotes and little inspiring things on the doors of the bathrooms. And, so now that we’ve got that one done, I’d like to see if we could go a little further with some other things.”

Kerkman, who plans to double major in special education and elementary education, said she may be little overcritical of her own work.   

“I like it, but just me being me, I always see my little errors, because no matter what you have, there’s going to be some error in it,” she said. “But I like how it turned out with everything.”

Kerkman said she thinks “it’s a great quote to have, especially in an elementary hallway” and hopes it will be meaningful to the students.

“Just kind of seeing it if you’re ever just self-conscious about something, realizing that you have your own thing that you can do, rather than going along with, ‘Oh that kid’s better than me,’” she said. “You’re all good in your own way.”

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