An Auspicious Sign for TBZ

On January 10, 2013, this Belize Zoo sign went up . . . exactly 30 years from the date that Sharon put up her first sign. 

The story of this particular sign is that Sharanya Thummalapally painted the original version of the sign on canvas after Hurricane Richard's devastation and put it up to let people know that the zoo had reopened for business.

A more permanent sign was needed for the zoo, and thanks to the efforts of the Wood Stop Lumber Yard in Belmopan and Paul Martin of the Roaring River Golf Course, this sign came to fruition. Emile Mena and Wood Stop donated the wood that they put together to make the sign. Paul Martin took the blank wood and had a template made for the big sign using the fonts/letters etc. from Sharanya's old canvas sign. He then had the larger letters drawn onto the wood. They routed out the letters before finally painting them white.

In order to preserve this sign a bit longer, Paul also had his men make a small wooden roof for the sign to preserve it before staining the whole sign. Paul also took charge of putting up the sign luckily, (it was VERY heavy) and so brought his fancy scaffold pulley system and a couple of his own men to make sure the sign was put up properly and securely. It should be there for a long time to come!!