By Brooklin Pigg
On the Sunday morning of Labor Day weekend 2011, Kevyn Jacobs, a Western alum, quickly disrobed on campus and mounted the sculpture “The Man Who Used to Hunt Cougars for Bounty,” more commonly known as “Man Humping Bear.”
“I dropped the robe, climbed the statue, and we did the photo shoot,” Jacobs said. “We were there and gone in less than 15 minutes.”
Jacobs was accompanied by Dale Terpenning, a photographer for The Betty Pages, a Bellingham alternative magazine. It was an outtake for the page three series in a 2011 issue. This series typically displayed a nude model.
“The concept of page three was that all shapes and sizes of our community are beautiful,” The Betty Pages said in an email.
Letting his mane fly as he gripped on tight to the statue’s head, Jacobs’ photoset earned the title of “Bear Humping Man Humping Bear.”
“I volunteered because I am a ‘bear’ in gay slang (a large, bearded man),” Jacobs said.
He said he would think of the visual pun whenever he would walk past that statue as a student.
The photos reemerged due to a tweet by senior Jay Chavez that received more than 1,000 likes and 300 retweets. “Come to Western Washington University,” it read.
Chavez said he was showing someone the bear statue online when he stumbled upon the photos. Racking up shock and intrigue, the tweet has generated responses, from people thinking Jacobs was Jack Black to relief about having transferred away from Western.
On his LiveJournal account, Jacobs posted a status right after the shoot: “Yatta! The deed is done. I just finished doing a guerilla photo shoot outdoors at WWU…naked (“Tasteful”) Naughty, not lewd,” with the mood of “accomplished” underneath.
Jacobs had no idea the photos resurfaced until last Tuesday and said he is amused at all the new attention they are getting, he said.
To view the rest of the photoshoot click here.