St. Cloud’s Granite Trio Will Be Seen In A Whole New Light

ST. CLOUD (WJON News) -- A special event is happening in downtown St. Cloud this Friday as the Granite Trio turns 50 years old.

The public art that features three large rocks was installed on August 30th, 1973 along West St. Germain Street.

Individually they are known as "The Sentinel", "The Castle", and "The Jewelstone".

Aimee Miron is the Director of Community Engagement for the Paramount Center for the Arts. She says at 8:20 p.m. on Friday there will be a program that includes turning on the lights that will be illuminating the art every night.

The city has installed lights to illuminate the sculpture, which is going to be so exciting for downtown, it's going to give it a totally different feel to that section of West St. Germain, especially in the evening when it is lit up on a regular basis.

Miron says Mayor Dave Kleis will be saying a few words, along with Mike Helegson whose mother Arlene was instrumental in getting the work installed 50 years ago. They will also have some historical images provided by the Stearns History Museum. And, Jupiter Moon Ice Cream will be selling ice cream.

She says the lights will give the work a whole new look.

Everyone on the team was very excited about this lighting project, not only to put the Granite Trio into focus, but also to create a sense of warm, and life, and vitality into our downtown.

Miron says they have just white lights for now, but hopefully, in the future, they'll be able to add various colored lights.

The light installation is a collaboration of the city of St. Cloud, the Paramount Center for the Arts, and the Downtown Alliance.

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The sculpture was done by Anthony Caponi and was finished and dedicated on August 30th, 1973 in front of 3,000 people who attended the dedication.

When the sculpture was installed they used a $5,000 grant from the state arts board along with another matching $5,000 raised from the community.

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