Altered diorama back on display in Texas

A beloved Civil War diorama handcrafted by Highland High students and sent to a Texas museum is back on display after its "historical inaccuracies" have been changed by the museum director, said a museum spokesman.

Museum that dismantled diorama now restoring it

Highland High history teacher Glen Frakes, who has expressed outrage about how the diorama has been handled, said the diorama is now "such an insult to my students' work."

"My students built a diorama that looked like it was built by adult diorama model makers," said Frakes, who has been in charge of 21 dioramas of American battles over 35 years. "This looks like it was made by elementary school children. This is like something a child of 7 or 8 would do on the living room carpet."

About 200 students and four teachers from Highland High spent more than three years and more than 6,000 hours donating their time to paint, assemble and construct the detailed Battle of Palmetto Ranch scene.

Commissioned by the Texas Military Forces Museum at Camp Mabry in Austin, Texas, the diorama cost the Museum Foundation $19,000 for materials and was shipped to the museum in August. It's the fifth diorama Frakes and his students were commissioned to do by the museum.

The students and Frakes have asked for the diorama to be returned so they can rebuild it after museum director Jeff Hunt took the diorama apart. Hunt wrote a book on the battle and said he couldn't display it because of the inaccuracies.

The Highland group also wants Hunt to be held accountable for his actions and pay to have the diorama shipped back to Gilbert and fixed.

However, it doesn't look like that's going to happen.

Col. Bill Meehan, a public affairs officer for Texas Military Forces, said the museum had issues with the diorama's topography, certain military units and how they were organized, and the number of soldiers shown killed or injured. The paddle boat was also traveling in the wrong direction.

Hunt and his team made the changes, and the diorama was put back on display last week. Meehan said the diorama is finished and the museum has no plans to do anything else with it.

"We're disappointed that there continues to be a controversy," said Meehan by phone Monday, stressing their focus is on the men and women serving overseas. "We think they did great work artistically, but it needed to be historically accurate. We're disappointed, but we understand its importance for those who put their heart and soul into it."

When reached by phone Monday, Hunt referred any questions to Meehan.

Retired Maj. Ted Aanenson, a former museum volunteer who resigned when the museum announced it had hired Hunt, said the diorama is a "poor imitation" of what it was. He lives in Texas and took several photos of the changed diorama.

"Glen's kids are like a professional football team, and what was done is like a high school varsity team," said Aanenson by phone Monday. "It's nowhere near the quality of work Glen's kids did."

The diorama now has only about 170 of the original 750 hand-painted soldiers displayed. The soldiers are lined up differently and do not reflect the original battle interaction originally intended, Frakes said.

"It's a disgrace. There's no combat taking place, no rationale behind it," Frakes said. "Every one of our soldiers was designed to be doing something. All these guys are now just riding across the battlefield. It's literally like a child's idea of a battlefield. There's no engagement. This diorama in terms of its quality is a joke."

Greg Moody, a life member of the museum who took photos of the damaged and current diorama, said this whole ordeal has been a "tragedy."

"Now it looks simplistic and amateurish," said Moody by phone. "The damage has been done. It should not have been destroyed. There's no way to make it up to those kids."