When a 911 dispatcher answered a call about someone moving animals in a Heber City roundabout the evening of Feb. 6, she thought the caller was worried about escaped sheep or cattle.“We just drove by the roundabout down there by Smith’s – I guess it’s on 500 East – but anyway, somebody’s down there with a trailer and it looks like they’re loading up the animals that are on the roundabout,” the caller told the dispatcher.“What animals? Like, livestock or something?” she said.In fact, the concerned citizen thought someone was stealing the new animal sculptures Heber City commissioned as roundabout art.The caller saw someone loading up the rancher and sheep statues and thought they were stealing them.“It’s a big trailer and they got the back end open, so it looks to me like that’s what they’re doing,” he said. “It’s kind of an odd hour for them to be doing it.”Dispatchers sent Heber City Police to check it out.Officers arrived to find Jonathan LaBenne, the sculptor, finishing the last of his installation – not a horse thief or an art heist.He said he was delayed and still working in the roundabout as darkness fell, identifying himself to any passersby who asked.“I’d explain who I was and what I was doing, and they’d go on,” he said. “And this one car kept going around and around, and I kind of waved at the guy. Didn’t wave back, and he’s just going around, and he had this look on his face that was really like, ‘Boy, something’s wrong here.’ And the next thing – I had all the light I wanted, but there was a slight change to it. It was red and blue.”Officers stopped the startled sculptor.“I could tell by the very professional look on their faces that it wasn’t time to mess around,” LaBenne said.He explained his setup, and soon enough, he was back to work.
The sculpture of a man herding sheep remains safe and sound in the roundabout.
LaBenne said he’d never had a run-in with police while installing his work. He’s based in Wyoming, and he said the experience was a good story to bring home with him.“It looks like I’m literally digging the thing up. What I was doing is putting a rock in there that would be a support to the back hoof,” he said. “I says, ‘Well, if you go look in that wheelbarrow over there, you’ll see some concrete.’ Then, of course, it became very friendly, and I was thinking it was just a cool experience – the community being so protective of their art.”And he said he’s received positive feedback about that agrarian art, including from longtime sheep farmers who appreciate the nod to the Heber Valley’s heritage.“That’s what it’s for, you know?” he said. “It’s for putting pleasure in people’s hearts and moving them. That’s what art is.”Four of LaBenne’s sculptures are displayed around Heber City. There’s a man on horseback herding his sheep at Heritage Farms Parkway and 550 East, a cougar and its cub at the parkway’s intersection with Mill Road, a coyote at the base of Coyote Parkway, and an elk at the roundabout on 600 South.