The dedication ceremony for the 8'2" statue was held on Friday August 14, 2003. View Real Player Video.
Senator Bill Nelson (D-Fla) and FSU President T.K. Wetherell were among several dignitaries who participated in the dedication ceremony for the new bronze sculpture of Claude Pepper. Wetherell provided welcoming comments to the 100-plus guests in attendance, and Nelson, delivered the keynote speech. Nelson recalled Pepper as an honorable lawmaker who championed the needs of the America's working men and women, the elderly, and the economically impoverished.
The 8'2" bronze statue was sculpted by Neil Estern whose commissioned works include the FDR Presidential Memorial in Washington, D.C., Fiorello LaGuardia, J. Robert Taft, John F. Kennedy, J. Edgar Hoover, Jimmy Carter, and Lady Diana.
"It would give me particular pleasure to be able to repay a personal debt to Claude Pepper, whose impassioned advocacy of the long stalled FDR Memorial, spurred Congress to finally appropriate the funds to begin construction. In my sculpture of Claude Pepper I want those who knew him peronsally as well as those who knew him only by reputation to immediately recognize the man for who he was and what he stood for," said Estern.
The statue was made possible through the generous donations of the late Margaret Mosher of California and the Claude Pepper Foundation.
