photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Junior Girl Scouts from Troop 2856 show off their mural design before the Lawrence Cultural Arts Commission's meeting on Wednesday, April 8, 2026. Clockwise from bottom right: Casey, Lucy, Kerrigan, Betty, Averlye.

Did you know river otters live in Kansas? Many people don’t, the scouts of Girl Scout Junior Troop 2856 say, and they want to remind passersby in downtown Lawrence with a new mural about endangered species.

This mural, and another one planned by the Lawrence Jewish Community Congregation, were both enthusiastically received by the city’s Cultural Arts Commission on Wednesday night. The LJCC’s mural would be on its building near Ninth and Iowa streets, and the scouts’ mural would be in a garden space behind Kizer Cummings Jewelers and Ad Astra Running in downtown Lawrence.

“We’ve worked really hard for this,” said Casey, one of the scouts presenting the design to the commission. “We all had to research about the endangered animals, and we all got to draw our animals, and we had a meeting and we all planned out where everything would go.”

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

A wall of Ad Astra Running where a mural is being proposed is pictured on Wednesday, April 8, 2026.

photo by: Contributed

A design for a mural being proposed by Girl Scout Junior Troop 2856 for the back wall of Ad Astra Running in downtown Lawrence.

Cultural Arts Commission Chair Daniel Smith was excited for it, too. He said it would draw attention to the garden space, which has been certified as a pollinator garden. (The scouts added a bee and a butterfly to their design to recognize pollinators, too!)

“Having some color and some cute animals on that wall is going to really improve that space and add a lot of positivity,” Smith said.

The mural project was for the scouts’ Bronze Award, the highest award a Junior Girl Scout can earn. At first, the troop had two ideas, said Kerrigan, one of the scouts: painting a mural or doing something involving endangered species.

“We decided to combine the ideas and make a mural about endangered animals,” she said.

The scout troop raised over $2,000 to pay for supplies, and Kizer Cummings has agreed to provide touch-ups throughout the mural’s life. To develop the mural design, they worked with Rick Wright, arts director of the youth art nonprofit Van Go, and they got inspiration from going to the Baker Wetlands, taking photos of wildlife and making drawings.

They also studied other murals around Lawrence – they particularly liked the mural by Dave Loewenstein at Hobbs Park, “The East Lawrence Waltz.”

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Junior Girl Scouts from Troop 2858 and their leader, Meryl Carver-Allmond, present their mural design to the Lawrence Cultural Arts Commission on Wednesday, April 8, 2026.

Loewenstein himself is the artist who designed the other mural the commission recommended on Tuesday, the 10-by-50-foot mural on the north wall of the LJCC building.

Lara Giordano, the director of LJCC, said the vivid design depicts an elder tree with “colorful facets within its branches.” It’s meant to suggest the congregation’s Jewish roots and its roots in Lawrence; the LJCC has been around since 1954, Giordano said.

It’s also meant to suggest the Tree of Life, whose name in Hebrew is “Etz Chaim.” “The Torah itself is said to be the Tree of Life for those who grasp it,” Giordano said.

Cultural Arts Commission member Monique Mercurio appreciated the layers of meaning in the design.

“I like that it’s not just art and a pretty thing to look at,” Mercurio said. “I like that it’s symbolic.”

There will be chances for volunteers to help work on the mural, which will be painted on the corrugated wall of the building. And Giordano said an art class from nearby Hillcrest Elementary might be involved, too.

“Our hope for this mural is to transform this north-facing wall … I think it would be generous to call it a humble facade … into something beautiful,” Giordano said.

photo by: Contributed

A rendering of a mural being proposed by the Lawrence Jewish Community Congregation at 917 Highland Drive.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

The Lawrence Jewish Community Congregation building at 917 Highland Drive is pictured Wednesday, April 8, 2026.

The mural designs now go to the City Commission for final approval, which assistant Parks, Recreation & Culture director Porter Arneill said he expects in a couple of weeks. The goal is for the scouts’ mural to be unveiled in July, and for the LJCC mural to be finished by the end of October.

The Cultural Arts Commission weighed in on one more big picture on Wednesday – the “Soka Kila Mahali” or “Soccer Everywhere” photo piece by Gary Mark Smith, part of the city’s Umistakable Public Art Exhibition. The piece is a “photo quilt” of pictures of soccer being played in the streets in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the commission was discussing where the piece should be located to draw the most attention during the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

The plan now is to put it on the side of the rounded City Commission chamber of City Hall, mounting it with hooks in the grout so as not to damage the bricks. “It’ll be the largest photograph I’ve ever made,” the street photographer said.

“We think it’ll be a really good welcoming piece,” he said. “It’s gonna look right up Massachusetts Street.”

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Photographer Gary Mark Smith talks about his project, “Soka Kila Mahali,” at the Lawrence Cultural Arts Commission’s meeting on Wednesday, April 8, 2026.