Else
By: Scott Cason
Arnhold
Photos by: Will Burns & Thomas Arnhold
American Legion Building, Russell
he classic showcase for an artist’s work is a gallery exhibition. This celebration often features a reception for collectors, colleagues, and friends of the artist. Fort Hays State alum Frank “Buck” Arnhold (’74, ’76, ’80) is a prolific artist, but you won’t find his work in any gallery. In fact, he’s held very few exhibits of his work throughout his career, but examples of Buck’s distinctive artistry seem to be everywhere in Kansas.
Buck Arnhold’s journey as an artist started early. At age five, Buck discovered that he liked drawing horses. Two things drove his interest. One was watching his older brother Fred carve horses out of wood. The other was stories his dad told about his grandfather painting horse heads on hayloft doors.
When he got to third grade, Buck learned that his new teacher lived on a ranch and liked to draw horses. Young Buck already loved all things “Western,” so through their shared interests in horses and ranch life, Buck’s teacher inspired him to continue drawing.
Years later, Buck was placed in a classroom of nine 6th-grade boys and a group of 5th-grade boys and girls. One nun taught both groups. Buck and the other 6th-grade boys passed the time, waiting for the nun to finish a lesson with the 5th graders by drawing.
“All of us drew during this time, but I’m the only one who turned it into a career,” Buck said.
On November 23, 1963, the nation was shocked by news of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Kennedy and his glamorous wife Jacqueline graced the covers and pages of “Life Magazine” several times, but that November, images in the magazine took on a more somber tone. Buck had an old set of oil paints from a paint-by-numbers kit at home and decided to paint several pictures based on the photos he had seen of the Kennedys. His work caught the eye of one of the nuns in school, who posted one of his paintings in the school hallway. It was Buck’s first “showing” as an artist.
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Buck Arnhold's drawing of President John F. Kennedy
Buck would go on to design bulletin boards for his school, often staying in during recess to work on his projects. One Easter, he created a design that featured a three-dimensional depiction of Jesus’ tomb.
During his middle school years, when other boys his age were beginning to hang out after dark, meet girls, and maybe get into mischief, Buck could usually be found in his room. He knew his strict Volga German Catholic parents wouldn’t permit him to participate in such activities, so he decided to dive deeper into his passion for drawing. Buck spent hours each day creating drawings of family members based on images in a family album his mother gave him.
“This really laid the foundation for me as an artist,” Buck said.
In middle school, one of Buck’s teachers announced there would be no art classes for boys. The teacher said boys would take mechanical drawing classes and girls would take art classes. The implication being that it was “unmanly” for a boy to take art classes. This troubled Buck. He loved art but didn’t want to be singled out, so he started bulking up in the weight room. He also began wrestling, running track, and playing football.
The next big hurdle for Buck was selecting a high school. His mother was set on him attending Saint Joseph’s Military Academy (Now Thomas Moore Prep High School), but they didn’t offer art classes. Buck’s oldest brother Jerry quickly came to his rescue and, two weeks before his first year of high school, convinced their mom to let Buck attend Hays High, where he could continue pursuing his passion for art.
Hays High is where Buck met art instructor Crawford Russell.
“Crawford was a hippie before it was a thing,” Buck said. “We had a record player in the art room and got to listen to music while we worked.”
During his sophomore year, Crawford pushed Buck to enter one of his pieces in a school art show. Still wary of being singled out by his football teammates, Buck resisted, so he went round and round with Russell about entering his work. Buck’s experience at Hays High and in Russell’s classes solidified his desire to become an artist.
After graduating from high school, Buck enrolled at McCook Junior College in Nebraska on a football scholarship. After his first semester at McCook, Buck was recruited to play for Fort Hays State University. It was here that Buck met and was mentored by Eugene “Skip” and Joanne Harwick, husband and wife art instructors. As his college career was coming to a close, Skip encouraged Buck to apply for an assistantship to help pay for the first of his two master’s degrees (Master of Arts in Fine Arts and the Master of Fine Arts).
The next step in Buck’s progression as an artist was fueled by a chance encounter. Walking down Main Street in Hays one day, he saw a guy on a ladder painting a sign on the side of a building. He struck up a conversation with the man, who soon started sharing some of the tricks of the trade. For the next six months, Buck learned to appreciate the man’s skill and, maybe even more, his quirkiness.
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Buck Arnhold painting a mural in Russell
“He used to hand-paint his license plate each year in the new color scheme, so he didn’t have to register the vehicle and pay for a new plate,” Buck said.
Buck turned his growing sign painting expertise into a small Hays business. He led his company for around 12 years but eventually had to come to grips with his limitations as a small business owner.
“I never took any business courses in college, so I didn’t really know what I was doing. I just got tired of what it took to collect money,” Buck said.
The demise of his small business led Buck and his wife Sherri to pick up and move to Kansas City in 1990. Sherri, an elementary school teacher, had participated in workshops in Olathe, and the couple decided that was where they wanted to be. Sherri secured a teaching position, and Buck followed.
Buck took a job with Acme Sign Company in downtown Kansas City. One of Buck’s signature works with Acme was the 75-foot-tall logo painted on the smokestack at the Boulevard Brewing Company. Another was the immense and then faded “Arrowhead” logo that Buck re-painted on the back of the Arrowhead stadium scoreboard in 1994. For this project, Buck worked from a wooden swing seat connected precariously to a 15-foot extension mounted to a 100-foot-tall crane.
“It felt like I was hanging on the end of a giant fishing pole,” Buck said.
His daredevil work on this project was covered in an article in the Kansas City Star. The Arrowhead sign was but one of several daredevil painting projects Buck completed for Acme.
His work soon captured the interest of several Kansas City Chiefs players. For the next 16 years, Buck designed stadium banners and hand-painted gift footballs for the players to use in promoting their philanthropic efforts. His work with the players also allowed Buck to create memories with his son, who got to meet his heroes and come home with autographs.
Buck’s work as a public art muralist began in Hays in the 1980s. Much of his work from that period is still on display in FHSU’s Forsyth Library, the kid’s section on the second floor of the Hays Public Library, and several murals at Hays High School.
Buck’s work as a muralist really took off when he started taking on projects for Associated Grocers, Inc., a co-op of small grocery chains located in more than 20 states. The company liked his work so much that they kept him busy painting murals in their grocery stores for the next three years. After some leadership changes at Acme, Buck accepted a full-time position with Associated Grocers. He went on to work for the company for the next 20 years.
In 1991, Buck was commissioned to do some original wall paintings in the elementary school where Sherri worked. Word quickly spread about the quality of his work, and he would go on to create original murals for 28 of the 36 elementary schools in Olathe and several more at schools outside the Olathe district.
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“I’ve probably averaged three to five murals a year. I had more energy when I was younger, so I could handle painting another five hours after I got off work,” Buck said.
Buck’s work truck of choice is a 20-year-old Subaru Baja mini-pickup. It’s the perfect vehicle for a hard-working artist who works quickly and travels light. Unpretentious, gritty, and a bit quirky, the truck is the mechanical embodiment of its iconoclastic owner. In 1966, the British Invasion band The Kinks recorded the song “I’m not like everybody else.” The lyrics to the song include these lines:
“If you all want me to settle down Slow up and stop all my running ’round Do everything like you want me to There’s one thing that I will say to you I’m not like everybody else”
Buck has always felt that the song perfectly describes his artistry and his personality.
In the summer of 2022, Buck was commissioned to create a mural for the American Legion building in Russell. His painting depicts members of the U.S. armed services, along with vignettes from our nation’s military conflicts since World War I. He calls it "Mural of the Wars," and believes it is among his best works.
“I always have this thought as I work on a job. If somebody way better than me were to come along, would my work be able to stand up?” Buck said.
On the sides of buildings, walls, in school lunchrooms, in grocery stores, and on smokestacks and billboards across Kansas, you will find evidence that Buck’s work more than stands up.
Check out our online magazine to get access to more of Buck's work: fhsualumni.com/stories/roar
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Stephanie Conklin, principal, Brougham Elementary School and Buck Arnhold
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Buck Arhnold's signature on his Forsyth Library mural
