Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Spray Foam Magazine – Winter Issue 2024 – It’s that time of year when nostalgia comes knocking, and for one community that nostalgia came in the shape of a 40-ft Santa statue. For the past 30 years, the locals of a small town had wondered where the iconic Santa had disappeared to, until one day it was discovered in a junkyard.

Ron McKeethen has owned and operated his painting company, Ron’s Custom Finishes, in Evansville, IN since 1996, so, when an unusual passion project appeared, he knew he had to act. This story actually begins in 1977 when Evansville local, Doyle Kifer, built a massive Santa. “There was an event called ‘Christmas Around the World’ in the local town’s historic courthouse. Each room in the courthouse depicted a different country and how they celebrated Christmas. The 40-ft Santa was placed outside the courthouse as the main feature and to welcome in the visitors.”

The following winter the same event occurred but the weather was extreme with snow, blustery winds, and ice. Santa froze in place and could not be removed until the thaw in March. After this, the people at the courthouse said they couldn’t have Santa back again. It went into storage and was eventually bought by a local businessman, George Busler, who erected the statue at Busler’s Truck Stop near the Mesker Park Zoo.

Fast forward roughly eight years and following Busler’s death, the statue was sent to a junkyard where it lay for 10 years. Throughout the years, the locals wondered what happened to the Santa statue until one day when McKeethen was traveling on an old back road he happened to glance over at a junkyard and he spotted a huge black boot! He knew he had discovered the long-lost Santa.

It made McKeethen sad to see the Santa laid out on a flatbed trailer broken in half, “This Santa is thousands of people’s childhood memories. I had to do something. I put pictures up on a local social media page about my find and there were hundreds of comments of people wanting someone to put him back together. I stepped forward and a local artist, Bob Zasadny, also offered to help.”

A social media page called “Stand Santa Back Up,” was launched to raise funds to restore the Santa statue. McKeethen helped raise money by making and selling BBQ in addition to crafting signs with a picture of Santa and the words, “We Believe.”

It took McKeethen and Zasadny just over a year to restore the statue. The original statue was hollow, the exterior was rough, and it was made from cheap materials. So after they had power washed, cleaned what must’ve been 900 lbs of bird poop from inside the statue’s feet, and fixed where the Santa had broken in half with fiberglass, they then stabilized the inside of the statue with inch thick wire braiding. They also filled any voids with bags before the spray foam contractors arrived. They ultimately decided on using spray foam to fill the hollow cavity and because of its ability to adhere to the wire braiding. They also knew that SPF would add strength to the inner shell. They had Dan Fulton, owner of Fulton Interior Systems Inc., apply a 2lb closed-cell foam followed by a fiberglass matting over top.

McKeethen then used his painting skills for Santa’s exterior. He applied two coats of Sherwin Williams Extreme Bond Primer, known for its tenacious adhesion, and wanting to keep Santa’s big red coat vivid and shiny. He then applied Sherwin Williams Sher-Cryl due to its superior gloss and color retention.

Once the Santa statue was restored to a higher spec of its former glory there was a parade including 20 (human) Santa’s that escorted the freshly repaired and repainted statue to its new home on Highway 41. The 3,500-lb Santa was greeted by hundreds of onlookers and streamed online to thousands around the globe proving that even as an adult, great things can happen if you just believe.