Mural, signatures make Indiana county tunnel a must-see

Key Takeaways

Traditions start somewhere.

In Vermillion County, Ind., one started from a bottleneck.

A few minutes from North Vermillion High School, County Road 600 North narrows to one lane as it passes under CSX railroad tracks. For years, the walls of that tunnel were covered in graffiti. It was an inconvenience that people ended up driving around to avoid, and just as easy to overlook if a driver did pass through.

“I saw it and knew we could do something better with those walls,” said RJ Dunavan, a Vermillion County commissioner.

He had two bottlenecks of his own — reaching CSX to get permission for the county department of transportation to paint the railroad’s tunnel — and convincing other commissioners to support adding a mural.

The former took a lot of persistence on the phone and the latter took four years of waiting for supporters.

“It wasn’t until 2025 that we had other commissioners who supported it,” Dunavan said of the work, done by the county’s department of transportation to prepare the blank canvas.

With those obstacles out of the way, the county hired an Indianapolis-based pop artist, Theodore Winters, to envision and paint the mural, reading “Once a Falcon, Always a Falcon.” He also included a “state champs!” mural on the opposite wall with a large trophy.

With Winters’ work done, North Vermillion’s graduating seniors have taken over. This summer, the 34 members of the class of 2025 signed their names to the wall.

The county highway department closed the road on either side of the tunnel to protect the graduates as they celebrated.

As Libby Farrell gets to know her fellow freshmen at Purdue University, she hasn’t heard of many of them with such a distinctive rite of passage, and virtually none among classmates hailing from similar-sized schools.

Farrell was the student council vice president for the class of 2025.

“It was awesome to get everyone together for that and start something new,” she said. “I never heard about earlier classes doing anything like that. I think it’s going to be a point of community pride when people see that, and it’ll be more than just us who have the good memories of signing our names.”

Dunavan said each student took a different approach to signing their names.

“You could tell some people wanted to be fancy and write in cursive, but your signature is only as good as the wall you’re trying to write it on, and all the paint in the world can’t make it like a piece of paper.”

Farrell was neat, deliberate and straightforward while signing, choosing simplicity.

“I wanted to make my mark,” she said. “If someone looks at the wall, they’ll know my name is on it.”

Dunavan said the school will work to reunite members of the 2002 girls’ basketball team and 2014 football team to add their names to the wall.

“Anytime you can turn an eyesore into a community project and have the kids buy in, that’s a great win for everyone, “Dunavan said. She’s only been out of high school for a few months, but the wall already means a lot to Farrell. “Whenever I drive by, it’s heartwarming,” she said. “A piece of my high school memories.”

That’s not the only place Dunavan has added murals in Vermillion County. The GIFT VIII Wabash River Blueway Grant has funded two murals on the Big Vermillion River on bridge embankments, painted by local artist Lindsey Franz.

Both play off the state tourism office’s IN Indiana campaign. One features a kayaker — “Kayak IN Indiana” — and the other features a fisherman — “Fish In Indiana.”

“It’s really hard to envision how big they are until someone who is about 6’2” stands next to it,” Dunavan said. “For us, it’s a quality-of-life thing. Kids love it, parents love it, everyone loves it and it gives people a reason to explore a little and check them out.”