Bronto t-shirts keep selling and selling

Friends of the restored brontosaurus are selling "Save the Bronto" t-shirts Saturday at the Durham Farmers' Market.

"People really love the t-shirt," Save the Bronto spokeswoman Nancy Rizzo told Bull's Eye this morning.

The venerable dinosaur statue has had its head restored, but the group still wants to raise money for more repairs, repainting and fencing, Rizzo said.

The t-shirts, with a stylized dinosaur drawn by Northgate Park artist Sebastien Florand and the words "Save the Bronto/Save Durham's History" went on sale in mid-July. More than 700 shirts have been sold, Rizzo said in an email, and they have gone into a third printing.

"We have sent t-shirts to California and New York and many points in between," Rizzo said.

Plans are to keep the shirts on sale until November, when the group plans a Bronto Birthday Party. Once repainting is done and a fence put up, t-shirt income will go into a "long-term care plan" in case the statue needs tending later on, Rizzo said.

Vandals decapitated the statue, which has stood at the Museum of Life and Science since 1967, on May 31. A groundswell of public distress led residents of Northgate Park and others in the area to combine forces with the museum and have the landmark repaired.

"It is amazing the attachment folks have to the bronto," Rizzo wrote. "I guess it is a reminder of a simpler time in our lives when life was easier and we enjoyed life's simple things."