Vicksburg Mural Committee chairman Nellie Caldwell, seen here with the fourth mural painted at City Front, next week will receive the Mississippi Tourism Association’s community volunteer of the year award for her work with Vicksburg Mural Project. (Melanie Duncan ThortisThe Vicksburg Post)

For nurturing and cajoling an idea toward reality, Vicksburg resident Nellie Caldwell will be honored next week as community volunteer of the year by the Mississippi Tourism Association.

“The minute the application crossed my desk, she popped into my mind,” said Lenore Barkley, executive director of the Vicksburg Convention and Visitors Bureau and a member of MTA.

Caldwell has chaired a committee working to add a series of historic murals to Vicksburg’s floodwall. The work is expensive, yet more is on the way.

“I feel very selfish receiving the award because it’s not just me,” Caldwell said, noting the Vicksburg Mural Committee has 30 members. “But I do appreciate it.”

Caldwell said the idea for murals on Vicksburg’s floodwall developed over the years when she and three friends traveled to Paducah, Ky., to visit a friend.

“We would ooh and aah about their floodwall,” she said. “We always talked about how we needed something like that in Vicksburg.”

In June 2001, the women bought a calendar featuring pictures of the Paducah murals and made an appointment with Mayor Laurence Leyens to show it to him.

“We asked him if he had a committee, and he said, I think I’m looking at it,'” Caldwell said.

The women began meeting and discussing the project and commissioned artist Robert Dafford, who painted the Paducah murals, to conduct a seminar on how to start the project.

Caldwell and the committee began presenting the idea to clubs and organizations in Vicksburg to find sponsors.

“We are very proud of her,” Leyens said. “She came up with an idea, organized it, put it together and she’s had tremendous results.”

There are now four murals, including one from an earlier project, and Caldwell said three more are slated to be completed by the end of the year.

International Paper and the Sisters of Mercy presented checks to the mural committee at a meeting Thursday. The International Paper mural and one the Biedenharn family plans to sponsor are scheduled to be painted this spring. Work on the Sisters of Mercy mural will begin in the fall.

The committee needs another sponsor for work to be halfway through for Phase 1 of the project. Phase 1 includes 14 murals. Work on the city-sponsored mural was completed last week.

“It has been work,” Caldwell said. “But I have enjoyed it tremendously.”

Caldwell said she foresees the murals becoming one of the major tourist attractions in Vicksburg. “That’s the way it is in Paducah,” she said.

Caldwell and her husband, Dean, have lived in Vicksburg since 1975.

“We love Vicksburg. I want my grandchildren to love Vicksburg and want to stay here,” she said. “I want it to be a good place for them.”

Caldwell serves on the National Day of Prayer committee and has taught classes at her church.

“I love being involved in the community,” she said. “But this is the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done.”

She will receive the award Jan. 30 at the Governor’s Conference on Tourism in Bay St. Louis.

“She has done such a great job, and the mural will be such an asset to Vicksburg,” Barkley said.

THE MURALS

The first mural, completed in May 2001 and painted by Vicksburg resident Martha Ferris features bright colors and pictures of the Levee Street train depot, the Vicksburg Harbor, cotton fields and the Mississippi River. The cost was $15,000 and financed through a grant from the Mississippi Arts Commission and the City of Vicksburg.

In a different series, the first mural was completed in April and was sponsored by Ergon Refinery. It depicts a 1907 waterfront scene including the Belle of the Bends steamboat.

Calsonic Kansei of Mississippi sponsored the next mural, which was completed in December. The mural is a view of Washington Street in the early 1900s.

The third mural is sponsored by the City of Vicksburg and will be unveiled at 2:30 p.m. Jan. 31. It welcomes visitors to the murals and depicts founder Newit Vick, his brother-in-law John Lane, and scenes depicting transportation, education, safety, government and recreation.

Three other murals are planned and will be sponsored by the Sisters of Mercy, the Biedenharn family and International Paper.

The cost of each is $15,000.