It’s rare to hear of anyone who likes speed bumps — let alone asking to have them put in place — but that was the case at the Southport selectmen’s meeting on Wednesday, June 1.

Island residents Jon and Cindy Smith attended the meeting to ask the selectmen’s help with speeding traffic.  “We’re impressed by how much traffic there is,” Cindy Smith told the board, “and we’d like to encourage them to slow down.” The concern is not only about passenger vehicles; Smith told selectmen that service vehicles are also driving too fast.

The Smiths asked the town to continue the practice started three years ago of placing speed bumps on Pratts Island Road, which has a 25 mph limit and 19 homes.  Selectmen’s Chairman Gerry Gamage also noted that another dozen residences access the road, all of which raise concerns for the safety of children, bicyclists and those walking in the area.

Enter “Shadow,” a wooden outline of a young girl painted black that has been spending the winter months in the town office. She is the work of island resident Eugene Huskins who created Shadow and her sister and two brothers. Gamage suggested the wooden signs and provided Huskins’ name to Nancy Prisk, who envisioned the safety initiative program last year. Huskins is known for creating wooden figures of dogs, cats and other animal figures which he sells at craft shows.

Donating his labor (“It was my pleasure,” he says) took about a week last summer and he produced the four silhouettes from materials provided by the safety initiative. The final products are made of MDO plywood, painted with exterior latex paint and attached to a three-foot steel stake. The concept came from the black silhouettes of children used on school zone signs in the 1960’s.

Shadow and her siblings have now started to appear on Southport’s roads as reminders to drivers to slow down. The signs will be moved as needed and as residents request.