The Tiger Statue

Rho Sigma and the Tiger statue were created at the same time and have always had a special relationship. The Red Shirts have become the unofficial guardians of the Tiger. The statue was carved in white marble in 1934 by Ouachita student Ben F. Worley for the 1935 Senior Class. Worley, a professional sculptor who later gave up his career to enter the gospel ministry, undertook the task of carving a lifesize North American tiger to be mounted on the lawn on a base of stone bricks. He had learned his art from his Italian father, who was in the stone business. Before coming to Ouachita at the age of 25, Worley had done flat panel carvings at the Louisiana State Capitol, carved the saints in the Philadelphia Cathedral, the eagles above the Little Rock Post Office, and the deer head on Elkhorn Bank in Arkadelphia. The president of the 1935 Senior Class obtained a model of a North American tiger from somewhere in New York. The college administration traded tuition for Worley's skill, and the Senior Class obtained the material, a seven-ton piece of hard Batesville marble that had broken while being loaded onto a train. The marble was trucked in from Batesville, Ark., picked up, turned around and cut down to remove the seams -- leaving two and one half tons of flawless, solid marble. There was no charge for the broken marble, but the 1935 Seniors did have the expense of breaking it up and loading it onto the truck. Worley researched his subject in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the only place that housed North American tigers, studying the actual size and features before he began carving. After it was finished, before its final placement, the statue was taken to the football field and unveiled at halftime of the final game of the 1934-35 season, a muddy slugfest against cross-town rival Henderson with the state collegiate championship on the line. Led by the men who would soon after found Rho Sigma, the Tiger eleven defeated the Reddies, 7-0. Thus christened, the Tiger was placed on its throne on stone bricks on the highest spot of Ouachita's campus, where it remains today. Legend has it that the first coat of paint it received was from the hated Reddies. The story goes that the entire male contingent of Ouachita marched over to Henderson and painted the first poor Reddie they found purple from head to toe. The statue has since been the scene of much inter-college combat, and has suffered through many, many coats of paint -- ranging from Arkansas Tech green to HSU red to OBU white and gold. Worley and a group of students attempted a major restoration at one point, burning off several coats of paint and molding a concrete tail to replace the broken one suffered in a particularly brutal vandalization. In the 1970s, Henderson students "castrated" the Tiger and delivered its "manhood" to OBU, painted red and arranged on a box of straw. The Tiger has also had its canine teeth broken. Worley was disheartened by the abuse of his creation. His last visit was in 1982. He said he would carve a new Tiger or restore the old one on the condition that it be enclosed in safety glass or steel bars to prevent vandalism. The university declined to take him up on his offer. Many, many student activities have taken place at the Tiger: Freshman Orientation, Gamma Phi's Sadie Hawkins Day, Rho Sigma 's Watermelon Bust, the formation of Kappa Theta Beta mock dorm fraternity, and even a few weddings. Sigma Alpha Sigma lost their charter in the 1990s over nude rides of the statue to haze members who had become engaged. And, of course, there is the All-Night Bell-Ring and Tiger Guard sponsored by the Red Shirts. Like Ouachita itself, the statue has seen good times and bad. It remains today, as always, a proud symbol of OBU.