Family's 'Minions' tribute on silo to late farmer has put a rural Indiana town on the map

A rural Indiana silo last month was painted to resemble a minion from the popular Minions and Despicable Me movies in honor of a family member who lost his battle with cancer, Katie Metter reports for The Washington Post. The minion now stands watch over the corn and bean fields of the Stark family in Ossian, a town of 3,300 in the northeastern part of the state. (Journal Gazette photo by Rachel Von)

Last fall Jim Stark suggested to his wife Kathy that they paint the silo like a minion, Metter writes. "The colors would be jarring against the earthy tones of backcountry Indiana, but the silo—squatty and domed—was just the right size. But the couple never acted. Winter was approaching. The paint job could wait. Two months later, Jim died. He was 73. It wasn’t until months later, after the first round of holidays without him had come and gone, that Kathy started entertaining her husband’s wacky idea. What if they painted the silo like a minion?"

"It wasn’t long before the gawkers started coming, curious neighbors and shocked commuters who’d heard from a friend who’d heard from a friend that a minion had invaded Wells County, Ind.," Metter writes. "Like the pull-offs for bear watching at Yellowstone National Park, Kathy’s country road became a parking lot of people stopping for a glimpse of the farm house attraction. The nursing home down the road brought a bus full of folks to check out the minion. The TV stations rolled up. Then the newspaper reporters. Selfies were taken. Tractors couldn’t pass. Jim’s silo had put Ossian on the map. It had become, in Kathy’s words, a 'tourist' destination." Kathy told Metter, “I’m out here in the middle of nowhere causing traffic jams because of a minion. There’s no way we could have dreamt this was going to be this big.”