MP residents complete, donate 8,000-piece assembled puzzle to Fellowship Cup

While traveling to Rome may not be possible for most people, Henry County residents can take a trip to the Fellowship Cup to see an 8,000-piece puzzle replica of the Sistine Chapel.

The nine-foot-long puzzle was assembled by Dean and Dorothy Lamm and Irene Norris, of Mt. Pleasant, and donated to the Fellowship Cup where it is displayed on a wall in the community room.

The puzzle came in four packages with each corner and a fourth of the puzzle in a different package and took two winters to assemble, Norris said.

Norris said that Dorothy wanted to donate it to the Fellowship Cup because it was a place where more people could see it rather than being displayed in someone's house. Dorothy assembled parts of it in her basement while the Norrises found space in their double-wide trailer.

Norris would take the pieces of the puzzle they had assembled and slip them onto nine by 12 inch trays for storage.

'That's how I kept them from flying around,” Norris said. 'I don't know how my husband and I did it together, but we came through.”

The puzzle was given to Norris and her husband as a gift from their son. Although it was meant to be a joke, Norris said they enjoyed the challenge.

Ken Brown, Fellowship Cup director, said he brought in a heavy-duty staple gun to hang it on the wall when he realized that wouldn't do the puzzle justice.

Instead, he called Steve Mendenhall, at Signs and Designs, who found a way to display it properly.

'Steve's an artist,” Brown said.

Mendenhall used black material for the backing of the puzzle and created a gold graphic for a frame to accent the gold in the picture of the Sistine Chapel.

'Just the black border would have been boring. I just decided to look at elements in the image and add to it, Mendenhall said. 'It was not a hard project to work on. Just an odd shape and took multiple people to lift it so the puzzle didn't fall apart. It was a pleasure to do it for them. I hope they enjoy it on their wall for years and years.”

Brown said the puzzle enhances the room and is grateful that people think of the Fellowship Cup for even donations like the artwork.

'It's history. It gives people a place to learn about the Sistine Chapel when they can't physically go see it,” Brown said.