"Go Pack Go"

"Go Pack Go" was created by Carole Bersin and Alicia Rheal. They started this project with little or no football knowledge, and in the end, not only were they complete Packer Fans, they almost understood what a down was!

Carole and Alicia met a few years ago while attending the annual Walldog meet in Danville, Illinois. (http://www.thewalldogs.com) Their mutual love of dogs and paint made them the perfect team for a Wittenberg mural. The design process began in November of 2012, when they met up at Gotrocks Farm with a list of mural "must haves" and a stack of Packer history books. After an intensive few days of creative brainstorming, several ideas were presented to the WOW committee, and a design direction was chosen. Meeting up a few more times over the course of the winter and spring, Carole and Alicia created and refined the scaled artwork that was presented to the Packer organization for final approval. The fundraising for the mural began, and the faces in the crowd started to fill up.

Alicia and Carole will be the first to admit, that even at this point, their understanding of football and of what it meant to be a Packer fan was only as a couple of artists hired to paint a mural. In stepped Jack and Elaine Diffor to rectify that situation once and for all with a trip to Lambeau Field.

It was one thing to see the beautiful brick stadium, watch a practice with all the other diehard fans and eat at Curly's, but the real defining moment came when the practice ended and the players came out to be met by the pack of kids with their bikes. Elaine had talked about this truly original Packer phenomena all along, but it had been lost on the girls. Experiencing the excitement of the kids as one by one the players chose their partners was an absolute Ah Ha! moment. Waking up a few mornings later in her apartment in Minneapolis, Carole knew that that had to be a part of the mural.

Arriving in Wittenberg on August 31st, their cars loaded up with supplies, Alicia and Carole began painting on the side of Hanke's Sentry Foods September 1st. Taking one week off in the middle to 'Go Fishing' the last brush stroke hit the wall October 14th just before the cold set in.

They would like to thank Elaine and Jack Diffor, Lois Smith, the Hankes, WOW, all the Wonderful, Supportive Packer Fans in and around Wittenberg and whoever arranged for the fabulous weather that stayed with them throughout the entire painting of the mural.