Antoinette Mims presents 2nd Lt. Ellery Keel with a certificate of appreciation for his work on the mural outside of the Soldier & Family Readiness Center building. Keel had a background in graffiti art before joining the Army.

Antoinette Mims presents 2nd Lt. Victoria Miller with a certificate of appreciation for her work on the mural outside of the Soldier & Family Readiness Center building at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Miller has also painted murals at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, and Fort Benning, Georgia.

Military Intelligence Basic Officer Leadership Course classmates and fellow volunteers join 2nd Lt. Victoria Miller, 2nd Lt. Ellery Keel and Antoinette Mims for a photo in front of the newly painted Soldier & Family Readiness Center building at Fort Huachuca, Arizona.

FORT HUACHUCA, Ariz. – Two Soldiers from the Military Intelligence Basic Officer Leadership Course were honored with certificates of appreciation after painting a welcome mural on the Soldier & Family Readiness Center building.

The Soldiers were 2nd Lt. Victoria Miller and 2nd Lt. Ellery Keel, from the 304th Military Intelligence Battalion, Military Intelligence Basic Officer Leadership Course.

“We came across a help wanted sign asking to come over [to the Soldier & Family Readiness Center] to help paint some rocks,” Keel said. “While we were out here doing that, Miss Antoinette [Mims] identified she had this project in mind…so we offered up our services.”

The project stemmed from conversations Col. Mike Childs, garrison commander, had with Mims. He found out the building used to be the Welcome Center “way back in the way back,” but never understood why it didn’t say welcome anywhere on the building.

After further conversations with Mims, the pair wondered: “How can we make this place pop with a bit of color?”

“Every week I come by and there’s just new rocks that are emerging, and there’s new pops of color,” Childs said. “But we were like ‘we need to have a big marquee kind of centerpiece,’ and then that’s where [Miller and Keel] came in.”

Miller and Keel both have prior art experience. Miller is a professional muralist and has done murals at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, and Fort Benning, Georgia. She is also a studio artist and tattoo artist. Keel’s experience stems from doing graffiti art before joining the Army.

On Feb. 14, the two Soldiers met with the garrison command team who provided them with some ideas for the mural and shared multiple rough drafts before deciding on a final design for the space.

“The command staff expressed their ideas, and we kind of brought it all into fruition,” Miller said. “They really just let us go for it and interpret it how we wanted.”

Throughout the process of completing the mural, Keel and Miller both learned a lot about the history of Fort Huachuca and tried to incorporate the history and natural landscapes into the mural. Both had their own favorite aspects of the mural.

“I like the Buffalo Soldiers riding into, or away from the sunset,” Keel said. “It just depicts the history of this whole area and the region. I think it’s really well done”

“For me, it’s the American flag. We got very technical with it,” Miller said. “I think that it being in the center and being held by the [Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps] is so important for commemorating the Army and Fort Huachuca, with the sunset in the background and the Huachuca mountains.”

Keel and Miller said they started by working on the project every Saturday for five or six hours, but that quickly turned into Sundays and a couple hours throughout the week as they understood the scale of the task ahead of them.

“This was only possible because of the amount of help that we had, the amount of volunteers that showed up, and we’re very thankful for Miss. Antoinette [Mims] donating her time here as well,” Miller said.

Childs made sure to let both Soldiers know how “blown away” he was by the finished product and said the artistry looks fantastic.

“What I love about this is it just, kind of, from left to right, tells the story of the fort,” Childs said. “From our early cavalry roots, all the way to where we’re going to multi domain operations […] and so this is just awesome. […] It looks fantastic and now it says the word ‘welcome’ on it.”

The mural serves as a welcome to the Fort and provides newcomers with a graphic depiction of what makes the installation a unique place at the edge of the frontier.

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Fort Huachuca is home to the U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence, U.S. Army Network Enterprise Technology Command, 2-13th Aviation Regiment, Electronic Proving Ground, Joint Interoperability Test Command and more than 48 supported tenants representing a diverse, multiservice population. Our unique environment encompasses 946 square miles of restricted airspace and 2,500 square miles of protected electronic ranges, key components to the national defense mission.

Located in Cochise County, in southeast Arizona, about 15 miles north of the border with Mexico, Fort Huachuca is an Army installation with a rich frontier history. Established in 1877, the Fort was declared a national landmark in 1976.

We are the Army’s Home. Learn more at https://home.army.mil/huachuca/.