Gen. McKee portrait to go up on Cape Girardeau Wall of Fame

The late Gen. Seth McKee, who has been called a "hometown hero" by family, friends and local veterans, will be added to the Cape Girardeau downtown Wall of Fame.

McGee's portrait will be added to the floodwall mural this summer, Mayor Harry Rediger said Tuesday.

Funding is in place, he said.

Friends, family and veterans have been lobbying since January to add the four-star general to the Wall of Fame, which honors famous people who were born in Missouri or achieved fame while residing in the state.

The mural committee of the Old Town Cape revitalization organization approved plans to add the portrait to the Wall of Fame earlier this year.

Gen. Seth J. McKee, right, commander of the North American Air Defense Command, presented a souvenir to President Richard M. Nixon of the chief executive's visit to NORAD headquarters underground complex in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 1971. McKee grew up in Southeast Missouri and graduated from Cape Girardeau Central High School in 1934.Southeast Missourian file

Local artist Craig Thomas has agreed to paint the portrait. He learned the project would proceed during a phone call from the Southeast Missourian on Tuesday.

Thomas said the portrait will be painted between the portraits of Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) and Gen. Omar Bradley.

The project had been stalled by a lack of funding.

Old Town Cape executive director Marla Mills said several months ago it did not have funding to add McKee's portrait to the Wall of Fame.

Rediger said he had hoped to secure private funding for the project, but that did not occur.

Brad McKee, left, and Tony Koeller, right, pose for a photo in front of the Missouri Wall of Fame on Tuesday in Cape Girardeau. Brad McKee's uncle, Gen. Seth J. McKee, who grew up in Cape Girardeau, will be added to the wall.Andrew J. Whitaker

The mayor said the $7,000 project will be financed with money from a Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau fund.

"It is a great project," said Rediger.

This will be the second art project to feature McKee's likeness.

He is among several military portraits displayed on Freedom Rock, a 32-ton limestone boulder in Veterans Plaza at Cape Girardeau County Park North.

The boulder, painted by Iowa artist Ray "Bubba" Sorensen II, features a patriotic tableau honoring local military servicemen.

The mural is part of a larger construction project being led by Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 3838. Once completed, the Veterans Plaza will have granite walls behind Freedom Rock with names of local service personnel engraved and benches to honor each branch of the military.

Tony Koeller, a friend of the McKee family, approached the city two years ago about adding the general to the Wall of Fame. Koeller said he dropped the idea after being told there was no money to pay for it.

He began pushing the project again in November. McKee died Dec. 26, 2016, in Scottsdale, Arizona, at the age of 100.

McKee, a highly decorated military leader, was "one of the fathers" of the U.S. Air Force, according to a resolution of support for the project from American Legion Post 63.

Koeller learned the Wall of Fame project will proceed in an email Tuesday from the mayor.

"I am absolutely ecstatic," he said afterward. "I am every happy that everything has come through like we wanted it to."

mbliss@semissourian.com

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