Using art to combat graffiti is nothing new, but it’s a first for Redmond.

A mural in the Highland Avenue pedestrian tunnel, opened Thursday, was the brainchild of a small group of residents participating this year in Leadership Redmond.

The leadership development program is sponsored by the Redmond Chamber of Commerce and Redmond Executives Association and focuses on developing leaders from within the community — encouraging community service as one part of the program.

“It wasn’t a hard sell at all,” said Dale Dishman, member of the leadership class. “People were very receptive.” Dishman and a small team from the class, which included Redmond’s new Public Works Director Bill Duerden, came up with the mural idea after hearing Arts Central’s Cate O’Hagan talk about art in the community.

O’Hagan described a mural project close to the Old Mill in Bend, created to deter graffiti. Duerden, whose department spends nearly $1,000 a year at Redmond’s pedestrian tunnel painting over graffiti, suggested that a mural might be the best solution for the tunnel, which lies between two city parks and is near Redmond High School.

Leadership class member Jenny Pedersen, a librarian in Redmond, did the research into the effectiveness of art against graffiti; Dishman led the charge into soliciting donations for the project and Cynthia Claridge, Greg Gentry, Leslie Povey, Ginny McPherson and Duerden got busy publicizing the effort and obtaining support from the city and various civic groups.

“We had a concept and a list of needs, and people came forward,” said Dishman.

To keep the budget low, the group decided to recruit a volunteer group of artists and soon decided student artists would be appropriate, since the tunnel serves Redmond’s largest park, the Dry Canyon.

Ethan Stelzer, art teacher at Redmond Proficiency Academy, offered to organize a summer school program of art students, and Redmond Area Park and Recreation District folded the project into its offerings for kids signed up for a summer day camp.

“Using community involvement in creation of murals (used to deter graffiti) makes a huge difference,” said Pedersen. “It almost becomes a peer policing thing where kids don’t want anyone to ruin what they created.”

Since students were designing the mural, but those students weren’t identified when the leadership team was soliciting approval and funding, the group had to rely on communicating the concept in more general terms.

About $5,000 in cash and material donations arrived from Sherwin-Williams Paint, Lowes and Home Depot home improvement stores, CoEnergy Propane, Safeway and Ray’s food stores, Redmond Kiwanis and Mazatlan Restaurant.

While more than a dozen RPA students worked on the mural, a smaller group worked on its design, deciding early on to combine local geography and a fantasy/mythology theme.

“It’s about the four elements: fire, water, air and the earth,” said Drew Burleigh, an RPA senior. “We all had different ideas, so we had to work it out so it was doable for everyone.”

In the mural, Mount Mazama blows its volcanic top, helped along by a fire-breathing dragon. The blue hair of a water maiden flows past the coyote of Native American myths and a larger-than-life salmon jumps out of the Crooked River under the shadow of Smith Rock.

Since the tunnel is more than 100 feet long, the artists had to draw their designs to scale, on graph paper, to make sure everything fit, said Hanna Gribling, an RPA senior.

The teens from RPA were put in charge of the younger kids from the summer camp, each taking a small team to work on a specified section. The mural’s designers spent two days sketching out the outlines of the murals, and it took three days of painting with the younger kids to finish the project.

According to Duerden, the city will apply a final coat of clear protectant on the mural, designed to protect the paint from the elements and tagging.

“I plan to come back here 20 years from now with my kids and say ‘See that mural? I did that part,’” said RPA sophomore Kaylene Cooper.