Created in 1997 in collaboration with composer/musician Eugene Friesen, the six hundred foot tall figure evolved in response to the Cellist's symphony Grasslands commissioned by Cowley College in South Central Kansas. Eugene, along with the Paul Winter Consort, performs Grasslands annually with full Orchestra and Choir accompaniment at the foot of the native stone and prairie grass portrait. This performance is in association with the annual Prairie Festival held in Cowley County, Kansas.

This archaic image was created in response to an eroded Kansas petroglyph and the design was the result of a concentrated community effort of volunteers to move and place 15 tons of stone at the artists direction. Eugene's Grasslands symphony was inspired by the diversity and beauty of the under appreciated grasslands regions of the world which have sustained human and animal activity since man became bipedal.

"I came to understand that the collaboration with Eugene Friesen, in a process melding history, music, art, poetry, and community, revealed the true potential for artistic expression. Because of the vision of Cowley College promoter Connie Bonfy to introduce artists from different disciplines into a single effort, the Prairie Man earthwork best exemplifies the potential for the artform."
Stan Herd , March 1999