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Papa Hornet
76 years later, Corky's creator is still abuzz
It has to be some sort of record.
Good luck finding another university, anywhere, that is still interacting
with the creator
 Online extras |
of its mascot 76 years after the first image was etched with pencil onto the school’s collective identity.
Emporia State University is 146 years old. For more than half of those years Corky the Hornet has been there, with his best foot forward and a smile on his face, as the visual symbol of all the hope and optimism we expect from our alma mater.
We have Paul Edwards to thank.
* * *
The 94-year-old resident of
Santa Barbara, Calif., has built his
life around the visual arts, from
animating Disney films to painting
signs, from illustrating sermons
to industrial “how-to” videos.
He’s still at it, and he works fast.
Planning a month-long symposium
for Abraham Lincoln’s birthday in
February, the university requested a
Lincoln likeness of Corky. It arrived
within days.
“I think so much of Corky,”
Edwards said. “He’s really my
legacy. I’m so interested in it. I’ll do
anything they ask me to do.”
Corky and Edwards first met,
so to speak, in the fall of 1933 at
Kansas State Teachers College,
where the 18-year-old freshman
took a second
glance at a mascot
contest to depict the school’s mascot,
the hornet. Another student had won
with a realistic drawing of a hornet,
which Edwards remembers as a “beautiful job” – but he also knew
the realism wouldn’t work for a
mascot. The insect needed human
characteristics. With the idea
fresh in his mind, Edwards tried
to call it a night, but he couldn’t. It
was probably around 10 p.m. when he
swung out of bed, went to his desk, and
sketched the first Corky, four legs and a big mouth, in
pencil in 20 minutes. He knew he had something good,
but had no notion of how enduring the image would
become. “Had no idea,” he said. “Hadn’t the foggiest.”
In the morning, he took the drawing to the person
in charge of the contest, and it went into the Bulletin for a new student vote. It won, overruling the realistic
hornet from the earlier contest. The mascot was born.
And then, of course, he needed a name. Edwards named him Corky, for the personality the Hornet began displaying in a “Corky’s Comments” cartoon that Edwards was drawing for the Bulletin. “He was always popping off,” Edwards said, like a cork. “He was always making comments about stuff that was happening on campus.”
Indeed, the 1935 Sunflower yearbook shows
a bit of Corky’s attitude – a collage of Corky images
(seen at right) just inside the front cover shows one where he’s behind
a student government 
podium, saying, “Be it resolved that powers of student body be substantially increased,”
and another where he’s reading a history book and
remarks, “Henry VIII and Mae West would be pals.”
* * *
The mascot contest wasn’t the first time Edwards had
drawn to an audience’s delight. His earliest recollection
is in the first grade, when his teacher asked him to stay
after class: “Paul, can you draw a robin in the spring?”
The budding artist pulled a chair up to the chalkboard
and unleashed a full-fledged drawing of a robin perched
on a tree branch with apple blossoms. In the morning,
his classmates applauded.
“I didn’t know how she knew I could draw. My
mother taught in the same school system, so maybe she
told on me,” Edwards wrote in “Pencil Jockey,” a short
autobiography. “That was the first experience I had
drawing for an appreciative audience.”
His skills developed from there, partly due to his
father’s occupation as a minister. The family moved
frequently, and Edwards was self-described loner. In
high school, his eye was drawn to the visual arts.
He would spend time after school watching sign
painters at a local sign shop in Hutchinson, and
studying the colorful portraits of movie stars in
the local theatre.
But the move to KSTC opened up his world.
When he had the sense to adapt a Hutchinson
High School cheer, from “Go Hutch Go!” to “Go Hornets Go!”, he found that familiar sense
of approval: “The student body applauded and
my self-image shot up like a rocket!” he wrote
in “Pencil Jockey.” He was elected the head
cheerleader and held the post for four years. He
became the sophomore class secretary/treasurer,
joined the Gilson Players, a student drama group,
and made the tennis team his senior year.
Graduating in 1937, Edwards saw a notice
from Disney, looking for animators, so he headed to
California in an old Ford. When the Disney folks told
him he needed art school training, he did just that
at the Chouinard Art
Institute while finding
work in a local sign
shop. Homesick after
two years, Edwards
returned to Emporia,
met his late wife
Marialice, and was
married by 1941.
The Armed Forces
came calling during
WWII, and Edwards
spent three and a half years
with the Navy, rising to a senior
grade lieutenant. Among other tasks, he was posted in
recognition schools to teach fighter pilots and gunners
how to recognize friendly planes and enemy aircraft.
Artists – and curiously enough, accountants – were
assigned to this instruction, because both artists and
accountants paid close attention to shapes and numerical
figures and could recognize them quickly. 
In the Navy, Edwards was also drawing cartoons and developing his painting skills. On the basis of that work, he went back to Disney and landed an animation job. Edwards was a part of the animation team that drew Mr. Bluebird (“on your shoulder”) from “Zippity Do Dah,” and he worked on films such as “Mickey and the Beanstalk,” “Little Toot,” and “Johnny Appleseed.” After two and a half years, though, Edwards and others were laid off. Paul and Marialice moved their three kids – William, Wenda Lee and David – to Detroit, where he worked for JamHandy, a communications firm. As an art director, he oversaw projects for U.S. Steel, General Motors, Proctor & Gamble, and more. A film called “20 Volts Under the Hood,” explaining the ignition system in GM vehicles, won a blue ribbon at the American Film Festival.
Meanwhile, the ministry was calling. Gaining a
theological education through the
G.I. Bill, Edwards moved back
to the West Coast, running the
communications department for
the American Baptist Churches of
the Pacific Southwest for 22 years,
retiring in 1982. “It’s been a great
life,” he said.
* * *
But he’s not done. He’s made
plans to attend Homecoming
2009 in late October, and
of course, he’s still the
consummate artist, producing
posters for his retirement
community, painting watercolors – of flowers at the time of a spring
interview for this article – and more.
He stays active with table tennis,
walking and bike riding. “You’ve got to have something ahead of
you to stay alive,” Edwards said.
We asked him if he ever talks to Corky.
“Not really,” Edwards said, before recalling the time he returned to dedicate a Corky statue in front of Plumb Hall. “But I did when I went back.”
We asked what he said.
A long pause.
“No, I just don’t remember.”
If Paul Edwards does remember, he’s not
saying. It’s between him and Corky, and after 76
years, we’ll let it go at that.
- by Jesse Tuel
- Bulletin and Sunflower Images courtesy of University Archives
* * *
Last Updated July 29, 2009