Tom's Life Bits

By STEVE OTTO sotto@tampatrib.com

Published: Jun 7, 2006

Right now, the clay model stands in the middle of Harrison Covington's North Tampa studio. The completed monument will rise more than 20 feet in front of the Plant City Hall, with a dedication set for Veterans Day 2007.

It's astonishing. It has figures from every war, from the early frontier days on up to today's modern warrior. It includes men and women and families reaching upward through the years.

It is, so to speak, a monumental sculpture by the artist, who is giving his talent as a gift to his boyhood home. It is also the completion of a full circle.

Born in Plant City at the beginning of the Depression, he knew poverty. When his father's lumber business collapsed, he did all manner of odd jobs, from picking strawberries to delivering the Trib.

Through it all, he wanted to be an artist, an unlikely goal in tough times. But he had focus and enrolled at the University of Florida. Brief Interlude

Along came World War II, and not too many months later Covington had put away his paintbrushes and was piloting a P-47 Thunderbolt. He could fill the paper with his stories, including getting shot up after attacking a bridge in Japan only a few days after Hiroshima.

With most of his controls out and his radio only receiving, Covington headed out to sea in what he hoped would be the general direction of Okinawa. When he arrived at his destination, he found only open water.

He did make out some looming clouds to the north, thought that might indicate land and limped off in that direction. It was, except the runway was shut down because of a crash. He was directed to a small island where the runway was a small strip that ended abruptly at a cliff (stop me if this sounds like a movie you've seen).

After an unsuccessful pass, he came in under another fighter, pulling up just in front of the other plane, scaring the bejeebers out of that guy. Somehow the two fighters made it to the end of the strip and turned facing each other at the edge of the cliff.

There's a lot more to the story, but it helps explain why in his studio there are clay models of a veterans monument he is doing. After the war, Covington would come home to Plant City, marry a high school teacher who happened to be the strawberry queen and return to the university to pursue his other love. A New University

In 1961, he was invited to come to Tampa and start an art program at the new University of South Florida.

He would become dean of the College of Arts and build a nationally known program.

He would even be commissioned to do a historical mural for the Hillsborough County Commission. They didn't understand it and canceled the project.

Covington must love working with government. They also commissioned him to do a bust of Hillsborough County's first black judge, George Edgecomb. “They haven't paid me a dime,” he says, which is why the wonderful-but-unfinished clay bust sits alone on another table in his studio.

Now, he is working on this splendid monument for his home town, donating it at cost to Plant City, which is in the midst of a fundraising project to cover those costs.

Nearly 60 years later, his work is as vital as ever, he is still married to Jane Langford the strawberry queen, and he claims to be a decent tennis player.