Hugh Mongus II is smiling at you because he is
watching you try to find his cache he placed. Don't be fooled, Hugh
Mongus II knows how to Hide caches and he won't tell you! "It
doesn't have to be a micro to be hard" says Hugh! It's Hugh
Mongus!
Cache is in plain sight!
HISTORY:
The original Hugh was sculpted by Demetrios Mavroudis, a
Greek-born sculptor and former University of Virginia fine arts
teacher in 1978 for a Richmond bank promotion. When it was no
longer needed there, it was trucked to Virginia Beach to stand over
the entrance of the General Booth Boulevard amusement park, then
known as Jungle Falls, later Wild Water Rapids and now Ocean
Breeze.
In 1989 the original Hugh Mongus was torched by an arsonist -
a flaming arrow to the abdomen actually did him in the story goes.
Movers then lugged the charred corpse to the back of the park where
the remains, or some of them anyway, still lie in the
weeds.
Gallup, a graduate student in the Old Dominion University Art
Department, was commissioned by the park co-owner to build a
replacement for another big ape by the same name (Hugh Mongous II).
Gallup started with a 12-inch-high model that he fashioned from
clay and captured in three-dimensional form on an ODU computer.
From the computerized version, which resembled a wire mesh
sculpture, Gallup formulated structural plans from which the
55-foot-tall figure would be erected. The basic form would be made
from a webbing of welded rebar and reinforced by two
weight-supporting steel I-beams that ran the length of his
body.
Putting the finishing touches on the big ape through the
weekend was a Gloucester firm that had been used to coat many a
Busch Gardens attraction with fiberglass and paint in years past.
They had been hired to coat Hugh II, first with fiberglass, then
with a layer of black polyester. Painting followed, adding color to
Hugh II's swim trunks, his sun glasses and finally, his pearly
teeth to highlight Hugh II's smile.