WEATHERSFIELD — When opposing schools travel to Weathersfield to take on the Mineral Ridge Junior High School basketball team, they now will have to do so while facing the menacing stare of the Mineral Ridge Ram, thanks to donations from students and the talent of a Warren artist.

On June 8, the school unveiled a new mural of its ram mascot in its Junior High gymnasium. The mural was painted by Aaron Chine, a local artist and owner of The Box Gallery Tattoos on West Market Street in Warren, and it was donated to the district by students from the graduating classes of 2022 and 2023.

District Superintendent Damon Dohar said the mural cost approximately $5,000 to have installed. He said students from the past two graduating classes came up with the proposal and funded the entire project.

“We redid our entire gym about eight years ago,” Dohar said. “A couple of those classes really used that gym quite a bit over the years, and they were like, ‘We need a ram up there Mr. Dohar.'”

Students from the graduating classes of 2022 and 2023 began fundraising for what ultimately would become the ram mural during their freshman year. Dohar said that since then, the students from those two graduating classes helped with events throughout the district to help support the mural.

“Their freshman year, they sold apparel for the school,” Dohar said. “Their sophomore year, they did other fundraisers, then their junior year, a lot of times they were running the concession stand at home basketball games, which took up a lot of their time. But all of the money came from the numerous fundraisers they have put on over the last handful of years.”

Dohar said after he approved the project, the students’ adviser, Judi Weaver, contacted Chine, a 1998 graduate of Austintown Fitch High School, with the idea.

“(Weaver) had reached out to me because I’ve done other murals throughout several local schools,” Chine said. “She reached out to me, I went and met up with her, some of the school board and the athletic director, and we went over some ideas on which wall they wanted a piece of artwork on, and we picked the wall that we thought would be best suited for it.”

Chine said the mural took him about five days to complete. He said the project was something he was comfortable doing.

“I’ve done a lot of murals throughout the years. It’s something I really enjoy doing, and I’ve done enough of them now that I had it down to a pretty good method as to where I can do it pretty affordably for these schools. Nine times out of 10, you have parent-teacher associations paying for it or fundraiser-type money, so I try to really hook them up price wise, and make it as affordable as possible.”

Chine said he is honored to do murals for the schools. He said he is glad students can see the art and know that it was done by someone local. The district was very impressed with Chine’s work.

“My man started on a Monday,” Dohar said. “We’d just walk in the gym, he never cared. He would sit there with his headset on, going at it. You could see the outline coming around on day one. By day two is was basically finished. Day three he just had some touch ups, day four he goes ‘I’m going to put this orange around the outside because I think it’s really going to sharpen it up,’ and he rocked it. He was no mess.”

Dohar said that the students who led the effort wanted the mural in the gym to express their school pride. Dohar said that type of spirit is something the district should cherish.

“I think it’s unbelievably important,” he said. “Pride in your school, pride in your community, pride in where you’re going, it’s everything. You should be boastful about the place that you attend, that’s one of the things those kids really said to me … I think it just shows that they felt like this was a pretty great place and that they can boast about it. It’s the home of the Rams and it came out beautifully.”