‘A look into history’: Local artist appreciates care given to his stamp murals

NORFOLK, Neb. -- Longtime Norfolk resident Bill Hoile was surprised to see the murals still up in the old post office building and is encouraged to hear his murals may stand the test of time.

"Well of course," Hoile said. "Am I going to have to come in after work and do them?" Hoile said.

That was Hoile's response to being asked by the second-in-command at the post office in the 1980s when he did the murals.

"Once I got started, some of the other clerks that wanted to maybe take part in this would put their talents to work," Hoile said.

When putting the murals together, Hoile said the subject matter varied by each of the original 23 murals, but followed a pattern.

"From there, we just kind of pieced things together in a historical fashion," Hoile said.

Some of the murals included the Western Meadowlark, an old fashioned computer, and the original Norfolk Post Office building.

After five have been taken down in the building leaving 18 left, Hoile said he was happy to hear the Salvation Army and Maj. Jesus Trejo were looking to keep the murals up.

"That was actually a nice surprise for me because I figured they would probably get painted over by the next owner there," Hoile said.

With his experience in art dating back to the 1960s when he attended college, Hoile has not done an art piece in a few years, but wants to get back into producing his art.

"I'm still very interested in it [art] even though I haven't had much time to work on it, but I'll get back to it as soon as we get some of this stuff done in the house," Hoile said.