NUMILA — “Let the photos begin,” said Fred Cowell, the general manager of the Kaua‘i Coffee Company Thursday morning when the rooster he described as being the “Tallest rooster in the country” shed its covering of tarpaulin at the Kaua‘i Coffee Visitor Center.
“No one has shown me a bigger rooster,” Cowell said. “So I’m asserting that this is the tallest rooster in the country.”
Among the guests watching the unveiling that coincided with the opening of the visitor center, Pauline Hardwick had the real-life version of the big coffee mug that was replaced with the large metal sculpture. The coffee mug that sat on the slab taken over by the rooster is being worked on and will re-locate to a different part of the landscaped lawn that is now irrigated.
“We didn’t want a cartoon rooster like Foghorn Leghorn,” Cowell said. “This is art. Even the landscaping was done to keep people from climbing all over it. It fits all the requirements of marketing.”
Juan Uribe, the Kaua‘i Coffee factory manager, said special lighting was installed so the rooster would be visible after dark, and sparkling was added to the paint to let the rooster shine. The rooster is planted to face the wind and is parallel to the highway so everyone can see it in the right light.
“This all started with an idea,” Uribe said. “Fred came into my office and told me what he wanted. We talked about it for a while until he saw the metal rooster sculpture on the desk. Who could do this?”
That was two years ago, and enter Hanky Benjamin of the Factory Maintenance crew.
“Hanky was always the arty guy in the crew,” Uribe said. “And, he just learned welding. When we told him what we wanted, and asked him if he was up to the challenge, he didn’t hesitate. He just said ‘yes.’”
Using recycled metal from the day-to-day operation of the country’s largest coffee farm, and juggling between tasks that needed to be done to keep the coffee roasting, Benjamin scaled the model, made some adjustments needed to construct the larger-than-life piece, and plugged away, making final-minute touchups just minutes away from the unveiling.
“Funny thing is we never had chickens,” said Darla Domingo, the visitor center manager. “A couple of weeks ago, a family showed up, and now we have several families. It’s like they knew a rooster was coming.”
The Kaua‘i Coffee Visitor Center is open Mondays through Fridays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekends.
Information: kauaicoffee.com.
