Palouse: Burning the Behemoth

The skeletal beginnings of Palouse’s first wooden mammoth stand tall on the future site of the town’s community center. By Jeslyn Lemke Gazette Reporter

A 15-foot creature of possible pre-historic proportions is lurking in a grass lot in downtown Palouse.

It’s skeletal figure will soon get a life-size trunk and tusks - thus completing Palouse’s first community mammoth.

Yes, Palouse artists are at it again.

For the second time in a year, Thad Froio and his fellow artists are building a giant wooden animal which they plan to set ablaze next month as a community-wide event.

Froio torched his first creation, Palouse-o-saurus, next to Dale Schoepflin’s air strip east of Palouse last November.

“I’ve just been pushing art. This is the second giant prehistoric creature I’ve built that we’re going to set on fire.

I’ve just been having fun with it,” Froio told the Gazette.

This year’s 15-foot wooden structure will be finished in a week and was created to draw attention to the bare lot it stands on.

That lot is the future location of the Palouse Community Center.

The night of the burning, Froio wants to throw an awareness party for the community center with a live band, food vendors and T-shirts that tout the burning of the mammoth.

The Palouse Community Center Board expects to put the construction project out to bid next month with construction starting this summer.

“I’ve been trying to make something bigger, a community based event,” he said.

The event will hopefully encourage people to give donations to the many fund-raising events in town that contribute to the center.

Every few days, Froio and two other artist friends cut and screw more boards onto the structure.

Froio gets his wood from the leftovers of the construction project now underway at the Palouse Tavern across Main Street from the burn site.

The head, tusks and trunk will be the last items to be installed, along with the wooden scales that will mimic mammoth hair.

“I wanted it to have some character, a whimsical posture,” he said.

Can he ride it? The answer is a definite “no.” “It’s not strong enough to ride on! It’s pretty precarious.

It’s an interesting engineering feat,” he said.

To get the entire structure to balance without toppling over, Froio set up several braces under its hips.

“It wasn’t just an easy sawhorse,” he said.

Froio is originally from Connecticut and currently works as a substitute teacher at Palouse High school and for a tattoo shop in Moscow.

He has family in Palouse and moved to town last year after realizing his passion for art had more room to grow there.

Froio said he wants to burn the creature where it stands and is currently in the process of filling out the proper permits from the Palouse Fire Department and Palouse City Hall.

City Clerk Joyce Beeson said Froio must first apply for a celebratory burn permit to hold the event.