Hutchinson ? A new mural honors the dream and vision of the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center’s founder.

Images from the 7-by-14 foot mural unveiled Saturday night show how the space museum has grown under Patty Carey’s leadership. To the extreme right stands a chicken, because in 1962 Carey started the Hutchinson Planetarium that became the Cosmosphere in the Poultry Building on the Kansas State Fairgrounds.

Also featured are some of the space artifacts that the museum acquired and restored over the years including the SR-71 Blackbird spy plane and the Apollo 13 and Liberty Bell 7 spacecraft.

The mural’s creator is Robert McCall, recognized as a world leader in capturing images of space as well as the vision and power of space flight, said Jeff Ollenburger, the Cosmosphere’s interim director. McCall’s murals hang in the National Air and Space Museum, the Pentagon and Johnson Space Center.

The oil-on-canvas painting, now on permanent display in the IMAX lobby, includes two portraits of Carey.

One features Carey in her early 30s, with her telescope. The second portrait features Carey today, surrounded by young people of different backgrounds and races.

Carey, a Hutchinson native, wanted to inspire youth and young people of America by establishing the planetarium, McCall said.

There are also adults in the painting, because the Cosmosphere relates to people of all ages, McCall said.

Carey said the stars of the space museum “are the thousands of people who have made the Cosmosphere a reality. It’s not a dream anymore; it’s a reality.”

The Cosmosphere and friends of Patty Carey commissioned the mural in November 2000.