Susan's Blog - New Bern Valentines Day 2016 (Bears)

Bern is the old Germanic word for Bear, and the bear became the symbol of the city. This first bear, a wooden one, stands outside of a German and European souvenir store.

These pictures actually were from both days, but they are all about Bears, specifically decorated, fiberglass bears. For New Bern's 300th Anniversary Celebration in 2010, a non-profit organization called Bear Town Bears recruited local artists to implement hand-painted designs on life-size standing and walking fiberglass bears. Each bear has a sponsor and they are here and there around town, each bear offers a unique design. When we saw a bear, we grabbed a picture.

This first one is called "Future Bear".

This second bear has 3 flags: the US flag, the North Carolina flag, and then the flag of New Bern.

This one was outside of Mitchell's Hardware store, which was founded as a livery stable in 1898 by Thomas J. Mitchell. Originally it specialized in selling horses, mules, wagons, and harnesses and is now has just about everything inside. It was operated by a member of the Mitchell family from its founding until 1987 when the last Mitchell retired and sold it to a local couple.

There are two "Drink Responsibly" bears that we found, this one is Spirit I (interestingly enough, sponsored by the ABC Board).

This one obviously is about heating healthy.

I missed getting the name of this one (sorry).

This is one of the cuter ones, Dr. Paw ... honoring 3 generations of the Hand family dentists in downtown New Bern.

Home town Bernie.

And the 2nd Drink Responsibly bear.

This is called Kare Bear and was sponsored by Keller William Realty (a shout out to Tom's sister Joan!).

Bearon de Graffenried, giving honor to the founder of New Bern.

This is Greenzly, sponsored by Piedmont Natural Gas.

Captain Black Bear'd (ha ha)

And last one that we saw ... Bear-ly Legal Bear.