The Duneland Women’s Soccer Club found another way to get its kicks – building sand sculptures.
The team competed Saturday to build the best sand sculpture in the 29th annual Indiana Dunes State Park contest.
“We have a pollinator garden. We’ve got two bees and a butterfly,” Cindy Beach – she married into the name; she wasn’t born of the beach – said as her teammates populated the pollinators. They added a worm and flowers to their garden.
“I love this place. It’s my happy place,” Beach, of Crown Point, said.
“We used to do a soccer-in-the-sand competition,” she said, but playing soccer in sand is hard. “This gives us something to do, have fun, and we’ll all be able to walk tomorrow.”
“We had a brainstorming session Thursday after we had soccer,” she said, and decided what to do. The theme for this year’s contest was nature’s superheroes. Beach figures pollinators fit the bill.
“We’re all just big kids,” Beach said. “We like to play; this all makes it socially acceptable to play in the sand.”
“We don’t have any special technique. It’s just good fun,” she said.
Dayna Rhode, of Portage, and her family were attempting to build a beaver. “It might be a turtle once we’re done.”
“We did watch some tutorials on YouTube,” she said, and a sand sculptor from Florida who stopped by shared some tricks of the trade.
“We do come quite often, especially in the summer,” Rhode said.
The beaver was her son’s idea. “I think it’s pretty hard, especially when you’re building up because the sand is heavy.”
Rhode and her son were in their fourth year of competition. In 2024, they won the People’s Choice Award.
“We did a cake last year for the 100th anniversary, and the year before we did a whale. We’re trying to show our competitive edge,” she said.
Building an award-worthy sand sculpture takes at least four hours, she said.
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Her son, Dillon Shepherd, of Portage, used a spray mister to preserve their efforts. “It just keeps it moist when you don’t have to dump a lot of water on it,” he said.
Daniel Mitsui, of Hobart, and his family were building an alligator snapping turtle – a native species – with a castle on its back.
He was something of a ringer, an illustrator who has taught a sculpture class, his wife Michelle Mitsui said, but their children used other inspiration, too.
“They got a book from the library on how to build a sand sculpture,” she said.
Their son Ben printed a 3D model of the sculpture with monster clay, a wax-based material. Fortunately, the weather wasn’t hot enough Saturday to melt the wax.
“I built volcanoes,” their daughter Lux, 9, said. She also hauled water from Lake Michigan to get the sand wet and built a retaining wall to protect the sculpture.
Michelle Braasch, of Argos, Indiana, and her family were competing in the contest for the first time.
“We’re going to make Captain Planet. Or we’re going to attempt to make Captain Planet,” she said.
She and her son Brody were hard at work. The other kids helped, too, while enjoying the beach. “They’re checking in with us, and we’re assigning them jobs,” Braasch said.
Brenden Mcglothlin, of Lafayette, and his sister’s boyfriend, Jeremiah Selig, of Lafayette, didn’t know about the contest until they heard an announcement shortly after arriving at the beach Saturday morning.
Mcglothlin wanted to build Squirrel Girl, a Marvel character, but Squirrel Girl wasn’t popular enough yet for most people to recognize her. “We decided to do Black Panther because everyone knows him better.”
“I’m just a Marvel fan in general,” Selig said. Black Panther was a good choice for nature’s superhero because he protects the community and nature, Selig said.
Interpretive Naturalist Rebecca Hughes said the contest is a family-friendly event. “Let the kids build something,” she said.
In addition to bragging rights, the winner gets some Indiana Dunes swag from the park’s bookstore. Along with the best sculpture, awards are given for the funniest, most creative and people’s choice, the latter determined by beachgoers voting for their favorite.
Hughes isn’t able to compete in the contest, but it’s not for lack of skill. Some of her previous efforts include a female sea turtle laying eggs and the three pyramids of Giza.
She credited the Friends of Indiana Dunes group for its strong support of not just the sand sculpting contest but also the park generally,
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.