ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 21, 1996 TAG: 9601190015
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: SANDRA EVANS THE WASHINGTON POST
The guardian of Smokey Bear leans a little closer to hear the question, his Smokey Bear string tie just a bit off center.
Sitting in his modest Arlington, Va., home, with a life-size, stuffed Smokey staring in from the sun porch, 85-year-old artist Rudolph Wendelin explains that his hearing isn't what it once was, and that his eyes are going, too. But the fire still glows in them when he speaks of Smokey.
``I was just proud of doing all this. That's why I saved so much,'' said Wendelin, who for decades labored over Smokey in the bureaucratic anonymity of the U.S. Forest Service. Over the years, he collected a prodigious amount of artwork and memorabilia, which he wants to see preserved.
Created by a wartime committee of federal officials and advertising people, Smokey Bear first appeared in a poster in 1945. Since then, his slogan, ``Remember, only YOU can prevent forest fires,'' has become one of the more familiar ones in the country.
Wendelin sees Smokey's influence as comparable to the myths of Aesop's Fables, which often used animals to convey a message. And he sees an environmental mission as old as the Bible.
``That's what Smokey's trying to remind us of,'' Wendelin said, ``to keep tending the garden.''
Although not the first to draw Smokey, Wendelin was the one who tamed and humanized him. Originally a bear cub in baggy pants, Smokey soon became an adult bear with a long snout, fangs and claws. Beginning in 1946, Wendelin defanged, declawed and otherwise softened Smokey's image.
``The idea was that he needed to be more human to communicate his message,'' Wendelin said. ``The claws eventually became fingers. He could point. He could carry a shovel. He couldn't do that with paws.''
By the 1950s, the beginning of Smokey's Golden Age, Wendelin was drawing the blue-jeaned bear with ``Smokey'' on his ranger's hat and belt buckle. (Wendelin's own belt buckle reads ``Prevent Forest Fires'' and sports the familiar Smokey-head logo.)
Wendelin drew and painted Smokey posters, postage stamps, Reader's Digest ads, teaching materials and fliers for a Hopalong Cassidy film about Smokey.
Smokey appeared in a television commercial featuring the voice of the late Washington radio personality Jackson Weaver. A cub saved from a New Mexico fire in the early 1950s was dubbed Smokey and was a popular attraction at the National Zoo for 20 years.
Smokey Bear became Smokey the Bear in a song touting the icon's praises, because the tune required the added word, Wendelin said.
With the government's having the rights to the Smokey image, Wendelin oversaw the use of Smokey on plastic banks, games, books, camping gear - and cracked down on anyone making unauthorized use of the name or face on tasteless cards or meat products. Smokey eventually got his own Zip code, 20252, which he still has.
``The idea of Smokey just caught on, with the children and the public,'' said Wendelin, who worked with the Forest Service for about 36 years. ``Sixty to 70 percent of my time was spent on Smokey stuff.''
Retired since 1973, Wendelin continues to draw Smokey calendars for an Iowa company and recently sketched a Smokey book. A new oil painting for the calendar shows a smiling Smokey high-fiving a volunteer firefighter in a fire truck.
The living room of Wendelin's home was turned into an artist's studio, where he keeps his Gold Smokey and Silver Smokey Forest Service awards for fire-prevention efforts.
Jean Pablo, a former historian at the Forest Service, started cataloging Wendelin's Smokey memorabilia several years ago, along with items found in government archives. Much of it is now in a touring exhibit.
Wendelin and his family started a foundation two years ago, hoping to preserve the Smokey art and mission by selling Smokey products.
``His ability to communicate and his identity with children is so important and so widespread, whoever is in charge of Smokey should take advantage of it,'' Wendelin said.
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: The Washington Post. Rudolph Wendelin, now 85, is theby CNBman who tamed and humanized Smokey Bear for the U.S. Forest
Service.