The Fulton City Hall council room looked like Sotheby's Auction as two exquisite, framed watercolors were paraded about in high style Tuesday evening.
The paintings, of the city hall now and then, were created by local artist Mary Randolph and donated to the city by Dorothy and Floyd Winingear, both former council members.
"Mary Randolph - she was the artist and she was thrilled to do this for us," Dorothy Winingear said of the two commissioned works.
The Winingears were married in 2000. They met in high school and graduated together in 1949. But Dorothy married a different fellow graduate, Bill Reifsteck, who became assistant chief of police.
"He was a great police officer," she said, adding, "we have three children."
Reifsteck died in 1992. Wanting to feel useful, she ran for City Council. She won, and won, and kept winning. She served 15 years.
Floyd Winingear also was a Fulton City Council member.
"I had Ward 2 and he had Ward 3," Dorothy said.
They voted together on many issues, including approval to build Fulton's new city hall.
"I made the motion and my husband - he wasn't my husband then; he was my friend on the council - seconded the motion," she said.
Later, after they married, they moved out of their respective wards and resigned their seats - but they loved, and still love, Fulton City Council.
Then came the paintings, memories of their accomplishments.
"We commissioned Miss Randolph to paint them for us," she said. "They've been very special to us. We said someday, we'd give them to the city."
That day was Tuesday.
"It was my honor," Dorothy said.
Randolph and her art
The two paintings are signed. On the back of one is pasted an old Fulton Sun newspaper article. Unfortunately, the date was lopped off the clip, but it included a photo of Randolph, then age 91, with her painting of the new city hall.
The article profiles the artist, saying she retired to Fulton in the 1970s. She started looking for local landmarks to paint and later display at the Kingdom Perspectives and other art shows, including the Cox Gallery at William Woods University.
"I don't really promote myself," she told a reporter. "At 91, I don't have anything to prove anymore."
Randolph was born in 1915 in Farmington and died at the age of 93 in 2009. She had been a commercial illustrator who studied under famed artist Thomas Hart Benton at the Kansas City Art Institute.
She worked in Chicago and New York as a fashion illustrator, working mostly in black and white, sketching models in apparel. After retirement, she took on watercolors. She also painted Fulton's First Christian Church and the Clapp Building, among other works.
"I've probably given away as many as I've sold," she said of her paintings, which she often donated to local fundraisers.
Randolph's husband Joe was a fellow artist and Benton student, who died in 2006. He built her a studio/house overlooking Crows Fork Creek where she lived for 20 years.
The picture of old Fulton City Hall depicts a company of firefighters with a horse-drawn wagon. The location was where City Hall is today.
The paintings will hang with much appreciation, City Administrator Bill Johnson said.
"We'll find a special spot, that's for sure," he said.
Besides accepting the art, city officials also are considering adoption of 2015 International Building Codes and 2017 National Electric Code in July. A 90-day public notice started Tuesday.
Copies of the proposed codes are available for public inspection in the office of the city clerk, 18 E. Fourth St., Fulton. The codes also affect residential and commercial construction.