Don Knotts has been memorialized in his hometown of Morgantown, WV.
A bronze statue of the legendary actor and comedian, best known as the bumbling deputy Barney Fife on the Andy Griffith Show, was unveiled over the weekend.
The statue depicts Knotts, who would have been 92 last week, sitting on a bench outside of the town’s Metropolitan Theatre, according to West Virginia local news outlet MetroNews. Knotts died in February 2006.
Knotts’ daughter, Karen, was on hand to unveil the statue, and share some personal insight to her father, such as he was nervous by nature and somewhat of a hypochondriac, MetroNews reported.
“I love Jamie Lester’s statue,” Karen told the news outlet. “It captures Don Knotts the person beautifully, while he holds Barney Fife’s hat.”
The sculptor, Lester, said the statue represented multiple works of Knotts.
“It’s a prop that is a symbol for the script for The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, which he did around the same time. So, it’s a nod to his film work in his left hand and nod to his TV work with the Andy Griffith Show with the prop for the Barney Fife hat in his right hand,” Lester said, according to MetroNews.
Watch the unveiling below.
