One hundred years of living and giving.

All of America will be celebrating the 100th birthday of a Sebring man who spent most of those years making Americans feel right at home. A toddler in a pedal car; a teenager on a bicycle; Grandma or Grandpa in a comfortable metal lawn chair perhaps reading printed material; baby in a walker; Dad on the riding mower; a deliveryman in a cab-over truck; a hostess setting the dinner table or bringing out the special punchbowl for a lavish party; a decorator selecting artwork for the walls; a floor fan cooling the house; an evening out enjoying music and dancing or a stage show with lavish set design, a student laboring in art class, all while military personnel are at their posts in defense of the nation.

All of these could well be utilizing the work of Viktor Schreckengost.

Born June 2, 1906 in Sebring, and growing up in a house on Indiana Avenue, Schreckengost and his brothers, Paul and Don, also quite celebrated in their careers, in many ways typified the average American boy in small-town life. What was not as typical was their parents' persistence they use their talents and their success in doing so.

A Renaissance man, Viktor has been compared to Leonardo da Vinci. Certainly, his interests and talents are as varied. Attesting to that are the myriad of venues throughout the country displaying his work, many focusing on just one aspect, in the 100 days leading up to his birthday this year.

Cleveland, where he was both a student and longtime instructor at the Institute of Art, creating the industrial design department, will offer a constellation of salutes for this star of that city.

An accomplished musician, artist, sculptor and designer, his work includes the elephant house and aviary entrances at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo and the Early Settler at Lakewood High School.

His works are part of the Smithsonian, and the U.S. Navy recognizes his contributions to their radar recognition and mapping systems during World War II. He also designed interiors for nuclear submarines to lessen the effects of isolation during deployment.

Art, toy, bicycle, music, sports and auto museums throughout the country are part of the biggest birthday bash ever being thrown for this centenarian who never lost his childhood curiosity or enjoyment of life.

Therein may lie the secret of his success. In addition to the work ethic acquired in his youth in the Sebring potteries, Schreckengost never lost his appreciation for the average American in small-town and rural settings. Despite the mixing with the celebrities and well-to-do which his work and success provided (His well known Jazz Bowl was created for Eleanor Roosevelt), he never believed that only the wealthy should live well. Much of his work was devoted to providing quality products at affordable prices.

His redesign of pedal cars, utilizing one-piece stamped metal and slightly differing adornments to depict various types of vehicles meant that more children could enjoy pretending to be pilots, policemen, firemen or ice cream vendors. His designs for Murray meant availability of bicycles to more children including streamline effects sold through Sears; the Campus Compact of the 1960s and the mod "banana seat" remembered by many.

Utilizing golf cart design, he created some of the first riding lawnmowers enabling the owners of post World War II rapidly growing suburban plots to "mow like a pro" as golfing great Jack Nicklaus touted in the advertisements.

His dinnerware designs, of which there are many, took into consideration the average shelf space available for storage and how well they would stack in a dish drainer, whether they would chip too easily and other factors important to frequent use.

He designed both shapes and patterns for potteries, including those in Sebring and the Salem China Company where his Christmas Eve pattern is widely known. He is credited with designing a dripless teacup exhibited at the 1955 New York dinnerware show.

Always in tune with the world around him, he departed from the Victorian traditions of copying European dinnerware designs and introduced the first truly modern pieces to American culture. His "Manhattan" line fanned the good fortunes of the Limoges China Company, later known as American Limoges. "Primitive" was designed with men in mind, a deviation from the often flowery and feminine designs for pottery.

Well traveled, he often reflected politics or religion in his art. A 1937 trip to Europe during which he viewed hints of impending fascism and war resulted in two sculptures with political overtones. The Dictator shows a lyre-strumming Nero with the British lion sleeping at his feet and child-size forms of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and Hirohito climbing up the back of the throne. Three of those four reappear in Apocalypse '42 in which the figure of death wears a German uniform. During that war, Schreckengost lent his talents to making better topographical maps for pilots and improving radar conditions. He was flown to the Battle of the Bulge to correct radar problems there. He also worked on elements of the plan for invasion of Japan, which turned out not to be needed with the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

His life intersected with many others, including watercolorist Charles Burchfield, with whom he painted, and Wellsville's Paul Travis, whose tales and drawings from a Cape-to-Cairo African trip inspired Schreckengost's sculptures Jeddu, 1931, and Mangbettu Child, 1933.

A musician who continued to be in tune with life around him, nothing was off Schreckengost's radar. He tackled any project be it public sculpture, dinnerware, tools or toys with a curiosity and strong desire to answer the perplexing questions that resulted in items of beauty and function to raise the lifestyle of all who utilized them.

And he passed his approach to his students, among whom are the designers of the Ford Mustang and the Crest Spin Toothbrush.

Not a typical centenarian, Schreckengost is as current as the Fighting for Five song, and surely knows how best to spend "100 Years to Live."

Each of the disciplines in which Viktor Schreckengost designed could provide an extensive exhibit alone.

Many of them will during the Viktor Schreckengost National Centennial Exhibition beginning Saturday and continuing until his June 26 birthday.

In addition to those works in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institution and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, his designs will be showcased at the Navy Art Collection in Washington, D.C., the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., The Francis Lehman Loeb Art Center Vassar College, the American Watercolor Society in New York City and more than 100 other venues from Connecticut to Wyoming.

In Ohio his work will be recognized at various venues in Cleveland, his home base for much of his career, including the Cleveland Institute of Art where he was the youngest instructor at 25, the Museum of Natural History, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Adam's Barber Shop in Cleveland Heights among others.

Animals in Art: Clay Creatures by Viktor Schreckengost will be on view April 29-Aug. 13 at the Cleveland Zoo Exhibit Hall in a combined venture of the zoo, the Cleveland Zoological Society and the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Closer to home will be exhibits in Akron, where his designs were utilized for the annual Akron Rubber Ball, the Canton Pro Football Hall of Fame, Massillon Museum and the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, among others.

His strong ties to Columbiana County will be showcased at the Salem Historical Society Museum which will emphasize his work as art director for Salem China Company. A set of his famous Christmas Eve dinnerware, advertising posters, Victory and Parsley patterns and the Primitive pattern of free-form ware designed for men will be displayed, as will a signed loving cup designed by his brother Don.

The society is receptive to additional items to be loaned for the display, according to David Stratton. A video overview of Schreckengost's life will be running during the display hours, Stratton said, and items representing his work will be for sale, including the Christmas Eve ornament. The exhibit will be launched 1-4 p.m. Saturday and will open those same hours Sunday as well as by appointment by calling 337-8514. Other exhibit times may be announced, Stratton said.

Following a short business meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Craig Bara of the Viktor Schreckengost Foundation will speak. His topic is Rediscovering Viktor Schreckengost: An Insight into the Man and his Creations. The foundation has been the catalyst for the extensive celebration.

Schreckengost's hometown of Sebring so wants to do justice to their native son that their participation is being delayed until April 18 to allow for more preparation. Already in the midst of a major renovation at the Strand Theater on 15th Street which will be home to the Sebring Historical Society Museum, the society plans a major retrospective of Schreckensgost's life from its beginnings in their city.

Childhood and family memories including photos and ceramic pieces will be displayed. Works of his brothers Don and Paul and of wildlife artist Don Eckleberry, also a relative, and other Sebring artists will be featured as well. The Sebring Historical display will include one of the football players Viktor fashioned as a youth to display in a local pool room window the night before each Sebring Trojans game.

Some of his pedal toy creations will be displayed as well as a table set with his Silver Age Triumph dinnerware. He worked for nearly all of the Sebring potteries, and is credited with turning the fortunes of the declining Limoges Company. Drawings, paintings, calendars and greeting cards he created will be present among photos of his military career and early life, according to Dery Zeppernick, president of the Sebring Historical Society.

Copeland Oaks Retirement Community, which sports artistic tile work of the changing seasons and of Sebring history will be open for view. The creations are those of Don in his role as designer for Summitville Tile.

Plans are for Viktor himself to serve as parade marshal for the annual fireman's parade June 2.

The Sebring exhibit will run April 18-June 26 noon-2:30 and -7:30 p.m. Wednesdays, 2-4 p.m. Sundays and by appointment. Zeppernick can be reached to arrange tours at 330-938-2387.

The first retrospective of Schreckengost's life work was held in Cleveland in 2000. It will be reprised in Columbus in 2007.

In addition, a book, Viktor Schreckengost - Designs in Dinnerware, by Jo Cunningham, an acknowledged authority and author of several other books on dinnerware, is forthcoming. A researcher and pottery collector for more than 30 years, Cunningham provides a study of Schreckengost's dinnerware shapes and their decorations. Many of his 24 major dinnerware shapes became standard icons of the age; these were decorated with more than 180 different patterns that were among the most popular of the time, she says. the book contains more than 300 photographs, many in full color, of his work, designed primarily for American Limoges China and Salem China companies.

For a complete listing of the venues being held in conjunction with the massive Schreckengost birthday party, visit www.viktorschreckengost.org.