Chamber float premiers at Medicine Creek Days

CAMBRIDGE -- Paintings by a Brazilian resident who calls Cambridge a second home highlight the new Cambridge Chamber of Commerce parade float premiered during Medicine Creek Days June 7. Julie Walters, chamber president, said the chamber wanted its new permanent parade float, "to represent the beauty of the community. Ivana certainly did that with her paintings." The paintings by Ivana Thome are of the Medicine Creek falls north of the community's small ball field and of the city park with its historic schoolhouse and garden and a bronze sculpture by Cambridge artist Sondra Jonson. Ivana, of Goiania, Goias, Brazil, has visited Cambridge three times, staying with her "American family," the Paul and Jackie Johnson family, in 1978, 1989 and again this spring. The Cambridge Clarion reports that Ivana is a professional artist and a biology professor at the University of Goiania. Walters said the new float replaces an old fire truck draped with a chamber banner. The float was designed by a chamber committee led by Ken Johnson of Twin Valley Public Power, she said. Cambridge High School student Jeremy Pace painted the arched chamber sign and the stone-look columns between which the paintings are suspended. Chamber members plan to enter the float next in Arapahoe's Fourth of July parade.