Bob Strickley | Daily Times

The Portsmouth floodwall mural of the Portsmouth Spartans. Portsmouth Murals, Inc. is asking for people to nominate athletes for the next mural project.

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Frank Lewis

PDT Staff Writer

Portsmouth Murals, Inc. is asking for people to nominate athletes — other than baseball players — who have made a name for themselves on the national sports scene.

“We’ve had a number of people in the area who have established themselves nationally and internationally,” Richard Grimm, chairman of the Professional Sports Mural project committee, said. “And there are those who think they should be recognized.”

Other members of the committee include John McClellan, Al Oliver, David Gannon and Bill Warnock.

Members of the community who have made their mark in Major League Baseball have already been recognized in murals.

“We can come up with a number of names, but we don’t want to get into doing the research, collecting the pictures that (muralist Robert) Dafford will turn into a mural and then have somebody come out of the woodwork and say, ‘hey, what about….?’ and we didn’t know about it,” Grimm said.

According to the committee, the nominee must have gained national and/or international status and they must be from Scioto or Greenup County.

“So we’re asking everybody in Scioto and Greenup Counties to tell us who might be involved,” Grimm said. “Right off the bat we can think of Curt Gentery (football), Chuck Ealey (football), Ray Pelfrey (football), but can we name everybody that should be in the mural? I don’t think we want to do that, so if the public will tell us who their thoughts are, then we’ll make the selections.”

Names may be submitted to Portsmouth Murals, Inc. Sports Mural, P.O. Box 509, Portsmouth, Ohio, 45662. Grimm said the deadline for consideration is May, 15, 2013.

Frank Lewis may be reached at 740-353-3101, ext. 252, or at flewis@civitasmedia.com.