Most physical awards made for honorees are boring – the same old same old. A certificate in a frame with a glass facing. Or a rectangular wood base with an engraved metallic facing imprinted with a message.
Now, the Sculptor-in-Residence of Sylacauga has invented (developed?) a unique physical award. It will be noticed by all and cherished by the recipients.
Craigger Browne developed an all-marble award. It has a flat marble stand holding up a marble rectangle. Afront the rectangle is a marble shape of the state of Alabama.
You have to see it to understand and appreciate it. And when you do, you will hope that, one day, you will win an award like this. If awards are meant to be incentives, this Alabama-made award wins the award for awards.
Browne was commissioned to make the awards for the Alabama Mining Association. This fact is ironic because the marble quarries in Sylacauga are members of that association.
Sylacauga is America’s answer to Italian marble. There are marble quarries employing thousands of workers. There is an annual marble festival each spring that draws tens of thousands of guests and a couple of dozen sculptors.
When the article you are now reading and the photo of the marble award go viral, we can anticipate that thousands of orders will come in for marble awards with different shapes and different states of the union.
Sylacauga, already the marble capital of the United States, can become the awards capital of the world. I hope that some day I can win one of the marble awards for journalistic excellence.
“The world’s largest commercial deposit of cream-white marble.” That’s the slogan penned on Sylacauga’s marble quarries in the early 1900s.
“The finest white marble in the world.” – Giuseppe Moretti
Editor’s Note: The author, Jim Zeigler, was born and raised in Sylacauga near the marble quarries.
Jim Zig Zeigler is a contributing writer for Yellowhammer News. His beat includes the positive and colorful about Alabama – her people, events, groups and prominent deaths. He is a former State Auditor and Public Service Commissioner. You can reach him at [email protected]
