Bomb returned Friday

Andrea Zimmermann
Daily Egyptian

The bomb is back.

Two days after Lucille Gibson put out a plea to the community to help her recover an inactive bomb she considered a keepsake from her late husband, her neighbor found the 350-pound lawn ornament at the edge of the woods near his home Friday.

"I am just so thrilled," Gibson said. "I thought it was gone for good." The five-foot-tall bomb was welded back onto its corner at East Walnut Street and Giant City Road Saturday afternoon with a fresh coat of red, white and blue paint. Gibson, and her daughter Judi Page, said people who drove by the bomb as it was being welded back in place cheered and honked.

"Everybody seemed as happy as I was," Gibson said. The bomb is from World War II and was made into a lawn ornament more than 40 years ago by Gibson's husband, George "Hoot" Gibson. Lucille Gibson said the bomb was one of the last keepsakes she had to remember of "Hoot," who died almost eight years ago.

She may never know how the bomb disappeared and reappeared so mysteriously, she said, but there were many scrapes and a dent on it as if it were drug across a rough surface.

Gibson had offered $100 to the person who returned it or to someone who gave information leading to its return. She tried to give it to her neighbor, Booker O'Neal, but he refused and told her to give it to the American Heart Association instead.

Local hard rock radio station, Rock 105 TAO, heard of Gibson's story and spent 30 minutes asking listeners to help find the bomb. Pinto of Hard Rock in the Morning with Critter and Pinto said one listener donated an additional $100 to the person who returned the bomb.

Pinto said when he heard the bomb was stolen, he e-mailed SIUC alumni in Chicago to tell them about it.

"We were going to do anything we could to get the bomb back," said Pinto, who is also an SIUC radio-television alumnus. "We weren't sure if [$100] was going to be enough, and we wanted to raise the reward."

He said he is unsure where the extra money will go. Page said many people stopped to see the bomb Saturday. Her husband, Mike Page of M.L. Ironworks, who created the copper dragon that sits inside the popular night spot in Carbondale, welded the bomb back into place.

"It's phenomenal," Page said. "They just went absolutely nuts." The bomb now stands on the corner again, with flowers planted around it and a hand-painted sign stuck in the ground next to it reading, "It's back! Thanks EVERYONE!" Gibson said it is now welded deep into the ground. "It's not going any place."