Downtown Asheboro mural to get formal unveiling

The ribbon will be cut on downtown Asheboro’s new mural at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, August 13, at the mural site near the intersection of Church and Academy streets.

The Asheboro/Randolph Chamber of Commerce will host the event, which will feature comments from local elected officials and mural project organizers. Children, teens and adults who worked on the mural will be recognized.

The ribbon cutting is free and the public is invited.

Designed by painter and art teacher Cori Cagle, the mural depicts a dawn-to-dusk vision of Asheboro landmarks such as the library, the municipal building, the old courthouse, the Sunset Theatre, Acme McCrary and more on the 220-foot arced retaining wall.

A core group of more than 30 children and teens worked on the mural each morning for two weeks in July, under the supervision of Cagle and Randolph County Public Library Teen Services Librarian Amy Keith Barney. Teens volunteering through the library and members of the Central Boys and Girls Clubs provided the bulk of the painters.

Adults were invited to paint on two evenings during the period.

The project was part of “Express Yourself @ Your Library,” the library’s Teen Summer Reading Program. It was funded by Trees Asheboro via a Grassroots Arts Grant from the North Carolina Arts Council through the Randolph Arts Guild. The Asheboro City Council approved the project June 4 on a recommendation from the Asheboro Appearance Commission.