Lucas ? Apart from the typical lockers, spirit posters and that distinctive high school smell, the hallways of Lucas-Luray High School now feature something that no other school can boast of in its trophy case.

An 8-foot by 3-foot empty trophy case has been transformed into a picturesque time capsule.

But in classic-Lucas style, it’s not a time capsule filled with carefully preserved items. In fact, most of its contents have been recovered from trash bins and salvage yards.

In this northern Russell County community, a mecca for grassroots artists, recycling discarded items into art is nothing new. Downtown is home to the Grassroots Arts Center, a showcase wholly devoted to exhibits of permanent and traveling artists.

For six weeks in August and September, the center was one of six Kansas communities to play host to a Smithsonian exhibit “Yesterday’s Tomorrows: Past Visions of the American Future.”

In conjunction with that display, and supplemental funding from the Kansas Arts Commission, Lawrence artist Mri Pilar committed to serve as an artist-in-residence through next spring. Since she packed her bags and moved to Lucas, Pilar has transformed the interior of another famous Lucas landmark into another rare exhibit.

The Deeble House is known worldwide for its backyard rock gardens, and after its owner and artist Florence Deeble died in 1999, her family donated the home to the local arts center, with the intention that it continue to be an inspirational point of interest.

Its outdoor exhibit is legendary, but the home’s interior didn’t carry Deeble’s same artistic touch. At least not until Pilar moved in this summer. She has transformed its blank walls into three-dimensional mural masterpieces.

Soon after the school year began, Lucas and Luray students visited the exhibit at the Grassroots Arts Center, as well as Pilar’s growing work of art at the Deeble home. The students were fixated on Pilar’s style of art, so much that it encouraged her to initiate yet another art project during her stay in Lucas.

Knee-deep in excess computer motherboards that she’s using as her canvas on the Deeble home’s walls, Pilar pitched an unusual project to the school’s art teacher and administrators :quot; a mural similar to the ones she’s attaching to the local home but built and designed by students as a permanent fixture in the school.

Lucas-Luray High School freshman Bethany Ellis, right, adjusts a piece on a mural constructed of computer motherboards as Nicole Paschal, left, and Dana Lintz watch. The students are decorating the piece to represent different themes pertaining to their life and community.

The idea of a time capsule developed out of Pilar’s own amazement at the students’ response and interest in art. She knew they’d have no trouble seeing things considered “old junk” by some as ingredients to their own artistic creations.

She hauled boxes of computer motherboards and cartons full of other former collectibles to the school’s art room, where art teacher Carolyn Bigham shelved the normal art brushes and paints for the unusual supplies.

“As an art teacher you have to be resourceful. This is a good example of that,” Bigham said.

Junior Alisha Ridgley has taken art class each of her three years in high school, but said she had never built anything like the project in front of her. As she and half of the class worked to dismantle the motherboards to their bare bones, others rummaged through crates of metal and plastic items. Hubcaps, plastic beads and toy figurines all represent something that represents the Lucas-Luray Cougar student body.

Ridgley was adamant that a headless horse be part of the mural – to represent the school’s arch rival, the Sylvan Mustangs.

Lawrence artist Mri Pilar looks over a mural made of computer motherboards while discussing design ideas with a group of Lucas-Luray High School art students. Pilar has a background in film , abstract painting and assemblage art. She is helping the students build a mural as part of a project made possible by a grant from the Kansas Arts Commission.

“Everybody has an arch rival and Sylvan is definitely ours,” she said.

The entire mural pictures images of the past, present and future. Each time frame is anchored on a spray-painted hubcap. At its base, and at the foundation of the local students’ lives, is the farming community, as well as its celebrated claim to fame – grassroots art.

In the center of the mural, students designed an image of their present stage of life.

Rubber toy rats create a circular shape around the rim of a hubcap. Hannah Ulrich, a junior, said the rats, surrounding a toy cat in the middle, represent the rat race of life.

In addition to life at school and home, the students wanted to capitalize on current events. Picturing the World Trade Center, using a discarded piece of metal that mimics two towers, along with a toy airplane was an important part of the design for students.

Like her own art, Pilar said the students’ final product is a plan that has evolved from chaos.

“We wanted to leave something behind, an impression of what we are about,” Ridgley said