By MIKE CORN

mcorn@dailynews.net

There was good and bad news in today's early announcement for the 8 Wonders of Kansas Art campaign.

Oakley's larger-than-life Buffalo Bill sculpture and the Lucas Garden of Eden art mecca were among the eight selected by more than 9,000 people who voted online and by paper ballot.

Not making the list, however, was Hays sculptor Pete Felten, whose limestone pieces adorn the rotunda in the Kansas Statehouse and several Kansas communities including Hays.

The post office section, with murals in Russell and Goodland, and the Marianna Kistler Beach Art Museum at Manhattan, also didn't make the cut.

The final eight in the 8 Wonders of Kansas Art campaign, which brought in 9,149 votes -- about a thousand more than the architectural campaign -- was announced this morning by Marci Penner, director of the Kansas Sampler Foundation, the Inman-based group sponsoring the program. Initially, the results were not expected until Oct. 31.

Jerry Robben, an Oakley resident who has been leading the charge in the campaign for getting the Buffalo Bill statue on the 8 Wonders art list, was delighted when he received an e-mail this morning from Penner.

"I thought that it was pretty neat," he said this morning. "I was disappointed that Hays didn't get on there. We tried to tell everyone to vote for Hays right along with us."

In Lucas, the mood is doubly festive, with the community and its collection of grassroots arts -- the Garden of Eden, the Grassroots Arts Center and the Florence Deeble residence -- making the list.

But it was especially sweet coming just two days after the community received the Kansas tourism industry's coveted 2008 Governor's Tourism Award on Tuesday evening.

Grassroots Arts Center director Rosslyn Schultz and Erika Nelson had been asked to make a presentation on Lucas' tourism efforts and its just-completed toilet seat art campaign and auction to the members attending the tourism convention in Wichita.

Instead, they were presented with the award.

"We're just strutting like a peacock," Schultz said this morning after learning of the 8 Wonders award.

The Garden of Eden, incidentally, had been among the 24 finalists for the overall 8 Wonders of Kansas campaign that launched a series of smaller campaigns.

The awards now will highlight Saturday's "Haunting of the Arts" from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday in Lucas. That's when artists will come back from the dead, or at least be there in spirit.

Both Schultz and Robben were humble about winning the award, noting any of the 24 finalists were worthwhile.

"We were glad to be in there," Schultz said of being a finalist. "Any one of the other entries were capable. They would have made Kansas proud."

But both of them couldn't stand the excitement knowing they were on the list, spreading the word by e-mail this morning.

"We feel pretty fortunate we got it," Robben said.

Of course, Robben and his counterparts in Oakley waged a solid campaign designed to get out the vote. At Farmers State Bank of Oakley where Robben works, ballots were on hand for customers -- and anyone noticing the sidewalk sign out front -- to fill out. The bank then sent along the ballots to the Sampler Foundation.

In addition, a chili feed was put together by the Wild West Historical Foundation that spearheaded the campaign. Naturally, anyone attending who stopped by was given a card detailing the need to vote for the sculpture.

The group ended up spending about $300 to promote the voting.

"A lot of the little deals added up to something big, and that's what happened here," he said.

Robben said the importance of making the list became apparent when the guide at the cabin outside the sculpture constantly was asked for directions to Monument Rocks -- one of the original 8 Wonders of Kansas.

"That's what told us it's going to get us some attention," he said.

Now, Robben said, "we'll promote it pretty good."