Newest art installation to be unveiled in the coming week

By Robert Williams

Editor

Iowa artist Ray “Bubba” Sorenson II is currently working on the large boulder at the Vergas Veterans Memorial and will be revealing his next completed Freedom Rock in the coming week.

The large boulder Sorenson will be painting has been in place at the Vergas memorial since last fall and he recently arrived in Vergas to do some research and complete his painting.

“This project has been going on for over a quarter of a century and the tour has been going for well over a decade and what I do is some research on the area and then I have whatever committee or person that is hiring me do some research and we meet in the middle,” Sorenson said.

The Freedom Rock project began in 1999 with a large boulder located in rural Iowa that is repainted every year with a different Thank You for our nation’s Veterans to honor their service to our country.  

Sorensen II was inspired by the movie “Saving Private Ryan” and wanted to give veterans a unique recognition on Memorial Day.

Sorensen spread the message of The Freedom Rock to other small communities across Iowa. He traveled the entire state and put a Freedom Rock in every one of Iowa’s 99 counties, including the 100th rock in Altoona, Iowa. 

Since then, Sorenson has started the 50 State Freedom Rock Tour and is now booking across the country, including Vergas.

Sorenson likes to find specific stories in each area to represent the town and specific veterans on his boulder paintings.

“So many veteran monuments are very broad and open-ended, or they’re just a list of names,” he said. “There’s no real story.”

While some communities have tried to insist on his art being a broad representation of all veterans, Sorenson digs to find something special and as many individual veterans’ stories to showcase.

The shape of the boulder also plays a part in the story..

“I kind of figure out what the rock gives me for faces; what can I make even remote sense of on very rough and not flat surfaces?” he said.

The project stems from Sorenson’s personal love of military history, the stories and people.

“That interests me very much,” he said.

In Vergas, a name caught his eye on a memorial pillar placed right near the entrance to Sorenson’s plastic paint shack – the name of Walter Fick.

“I was walking by one of these pillars and I saw “SILVERSTAR” and it’s run together as one word and I thought, ‘there’s a Silver Star recipient they didn’t tell me about?’”

The Silver Star Medal (SSM) is the United States Armed Forces’ third-highest military decoration for valor in combat. The Silver Star Medal is awarded primarily to members of the United States Armed Forces for gallantry in action against an enemy of the United States.

Fick was killed in action while serving in World War II, along with his brother Harold Fick.

“That’s a high level medal,” Sorenson said.

Sorenson tracked down a short story that was written about Walter Fick by a man who served with him.

From that story, Sorenson added Fick’s story to the Freedom Rock, along with other representations of the U.S.S. Minnesota, and the Black Hawk helicopter that crashed in December of 2019 that killed Charles Nord, who is buried in Vergas.

Tying local veteran stories onto the Freedom Rock is essential to the art.

“Just stories that are pertinent to the area,” said Sorenson. “If I just put all five branches of the military and the flag, and I keep doing that over and over, everybody is going to go see one and say whoop, that’s good enough. Why would I go to the next one? With this, I’ve got to go see the one in Vergas because I don’t know these stories. It just keeps people coming to visit them more and more and it’s kind of a patchwork mural of well over 100 rocks that tell the story of U.S. military history.”

It’s a similar process at each village, town or city Sorenson visits.

“If you let those stories die, they’re gone; it’s kind of my mission to keep some of these interesting stories alive and every little nook and cranny in the United States has these stories,” he said. 

The Sorenson family is hoping to keep those stories alive for generations to come.

“I’m hoping to hand it off to my kids; they seem very interested and they’ve painted with me every year of their lives,” he said. 

Having surpassed 100 rocks is still a surprise. Sorenson describes the first Freedom Rock he painted as, “I was asking permission to graffiti their rock,” he laughed.

He started the project before 9-11, which he describes as a time when patriotism was at a lull.

“It really sparked love from veterans that somebody that isn’t in the service is reaching out and thanking us that are in service and I think that is what kicked it off and kept it popular,” Sorenson said.

While the Vergas Veterans Memorial can be surprising at how well it’s constructed and the prominence it plays in a small village, having seen so many, it is not a surprise to Sorenson.

“It probably would surprise me had I not been in this,” he said. “I always joke that a lot of people always say, “Why isn’t this in the county seat? This should be in a bigger town or bigger city?’ I always say the less government and these little tight knit communities do really well with projects like this because there aren’t so many hoops to get through.”

Sorenson cited a rock he placed in Blockton, Iowa, population 125, where all the city streets are gravel.

“They wanted the Freedom Rock in town and little towns like that are amazing,” he said, “I grew up in a tiny town.”

Sorenson is booked out well into the future. Each Freedom Rock takes typically a week to 10 days to complete and if the timing is right he will be in Vergas for the unveiling, but that is not something that is mandatory to him.

“I usually leave it up to the folks that are doing it, if they want to plan something for my last day they can or they can have me come back, but usually I say my part here is done, you guys are the ones that will take pride in this and honor the families that are on this,” said Sorenson. “They’re way more important than I am. I’m just the storyteller.”

For more information, visit www.thefreedomrock.com/