If you drive north out of Altamont on Lake Viking Road, 165th Street, and glance to your right, you may have to do a double take. You’re seeing right. It’s a 16-foot snowman decked out in red, white, and blue and proudly waving the American Flag in one hand and what remains of a Chiefs flag in the other.
According to Bryson Hunter, 14, it took his family a good year to completely build the structure. They had a general idea of what they wanted to make and looked up a few pictures online for more inspiration.
Eventually they settled on the concept and started its construction. Propane tanks make up the three segments of the trunk, circle piping is used for the arms. The nose is flat metal; the buttons of the mouth are metal circles. The brim of the hat is 14-gauge metal cut out on a plasma table; the top of the hat is the bottom of a metal barrel. The snowman is painted, except its stars are cut-out vinyl.
The whole thing went up last Christmas.
Since then, Bryson says people driving out of Lake Viking sometimes stop and get pictures and they have seen several comments on various social media sites.
The giant snowman takes on different personalities depending on the time of year.
Right now, it is decked out to celebrate the Fourth of July. In the winter, it’s a big white snowman. In the summer, it has on a hula skirt with a beach ball and a sand shovel.
Bryson, 14, and Madison, 12, pictured, are the children of Machelle and Billy Hunter. They are students at Gallatin R-5. Their brother Tanner graduated from Gallatin in 2020.
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