ANGELA MENTZER
A colourful tribute to one of the four teenagers who died in a horror car crash in Hastings two years ago has been honoured with a national award.
Alex Scales was 15 when he died after a car driven by 17-year-old Che Orbelle-Pere smashed at high speed into a tree
off Windsor Avenue on July 29, 2005.
Dylan Britten, 16, and 17-year-old Michael Jeffries also lost their lives.
For Dallas Alexander of Headstone World in Hastings, it was Alex's love of the Spiderman movies which inspired him to create something special and memorable for the youngster.
And it was an inspiration that has won a New Zealand Master Monumental Masons Association award for the startling three-dimensional headstone.
A Spiderman poster was one of the many items and objects that appeared around the tree in the wake of the crash.
Alex was tall for his age and loved to climb, so the Spiderman tag stuck to him.
The headstone, which is carved out of granite, took over a month to create and shows the red and blue comic book character climbing over it.
At first, Alex's mother Judy Glenny struggled to imagine how the headstone design would come out - but when she saw the finished work she was delighted.
"It is just fantastic. Dallas is very understanding. He was enthusiastic to come up with something great for us," Ms Glenny said.
The headstone is an eye-catcher at the Mangaroa Cemetery, and has also received the thumbs-up from the friends who still visit their "spidey" mate's graveside.
It is the first headstone Mr Alexander has composed in 3-D. A long process involving various drawings took place before a crawling Spiderman was decided on.
A former sign-writer who has been with Headstone World for 15 months, Mr Alexander was accustomed to seeing his designs on shop fronts, but now he visits cemeteries to admire his works.
"Its great to see the pleasure the headstones bring to families," he said."Everything I do is artistic, it's just what I do".
Two more headstones, for two of the other young men who died in the crash, are currently being created by Mr Alexander and will eventually be placed beside Alex's.
