Alyssa Fritzlaff
MOE’S South St Primary School has added a colourful new edition to their playground.
Upon returning to school after restrictions eased, South St’s students were greeted with one of artist Steve Bechaz’s newest creations.
The mural, which overlooks the playground, acts as a fun reminder of the school’s values: be safe, be a learner, be respectful.
Roary the lion is the schools Positive Behaviour for Learning (PB4L) mascot, and encourages students to follow South St’s values.
“The kids love Roary,” staff member Teresa O’Reilly said.
“We are bettering our school by doing plants and lots of things … and we came up with the idea of having a mural.”
“It’s also part of our rewards system, we have a token chart that has got Roary on it.”
Roary the lion is a big part of the school community, and South St’s students are very fond of the mascot – making him an obvious choice for the mural.
Funds were raised by members of the school’s PB4L team in collaboration with the school committee and parents.
“Our PB4L team did fundraising.. we did a sausage sizzle and a pyjama day. The parents and committee were involved in it and the school covered the rest,” Ms O’Reilly said.
Mr Bechaz started painting the mural during the Term 3 school holidays, but due to poor weather, the project ended up taking longer than expected.
“I was hoping to get it done before the kids came back, then I was still working on it and touching up a few things when they were here,” he said.
However, the students did not seem to mind and Mr Bechaz found them making all sorts of requests, including one for a yellow balloon – which he delivered.
“It’s beyond our expectations, Steve has done an amazing job,” Ms O’Reilly said.
Mr Bechaz is responsible for numerous murals in the Latrobe Valley, which Ms O’Reilly said the students were very excited about.
“They’re so excited to think that he hasn’t just done ours, but other places as well.”
“The 5/6s were really the last ones to see it, when they came back we made it a big deal that we had a surprise for them,” she said.
Mr Bechaz said the mural is composed of mixed mediums and took a few weeks to complete, given all the weather related setbacks he endured.
“It’s a mix, painting, brush, roll and spray-paint down the bottom…because of the surface and the windows I tried to make it was clean as I could,” he explained.
Ms O’Reilly said South St Primary was very grateful for Mr Bechaz’s work on the mural.
“Steve donated a lot of his time to do this, it cost us nothing compared to what we expected because he was generous with his pricing and really helped our school community out,” she told The Express.
“I’m keen to really brighten up the town,” Mr Bechaz said.
“It think it makes a big improvement, especially on run-down infrastructure as well.”
South St’s Roary is set to be included in Mr Bechaz’s mural walk, which he hosts once a year.
