The Bust of Hunfalvy

At the main entrance of the building we can see the bust of the 50-year old  geographer in his prime. There is a story behind the statue. Certain beliefs have been related to it since generations of students. The bust was popular from the first moment. Since the unveiling a special ritual has been tied to it: the one who strokes the nose in the morning upon entering the school will not have to give an oral report that day.

  

The bright shining nose is showing that the ritual is still going on. It symbolizes the unity of the founder and name giver Hunfalvy János and the institution. Every year on Hunfalvy day we lay the wreath of remembrance on the bust.

A Hunfalvy statue was first erected in 1942 in our school. However, this masterpiece was destroyed during the Second World War and only the title pages of the yearbooks keep its memory. In the 1950-s sculptor Ferenczy Béla György originally used plaster to make the bust we can see today. The casting was never made and the bust itself was later stored in the attic. This is where Tallós Tibor, deputy headmaster found it in the 1970-s. With the help of the headmistress, Bernáth Lászlóné,  he launched a movement to cast the bust in bronze. Encouraged by them the students of the school began collecting metal when Eke Erzsébet, a student who graduated in 1968, offered three quarters of the necessary quantity of bronze to finish the statue.The casting was helped by a parent Marczy Antal whose two children had also attended the school. The bust was finalized in the foundry of the Fine Art Funds in Szeged. It does not only honour the memory of Hunfalvy János but also symbolically links up the students, the teachers and the headmistress of the 70-s with all-time people at Hunfalvy.