Bosco Ramos, a Black Labrador and Rottweiler mix, defeated two humans to win the election as Mayor of Sunol, California in 1981. Mayor Bosco’s 13-year term of office was highlighted by television appearances, game shows, and news reports that became controversial headlines in Communist China. After a nationwide search, a group of Sunolians commissioned MFA Sculptor Lena Toritch to create a bronze portrait of Bosco that will forever commemorate this canine political symbol of democracy and humor.
Sunol is an unincorporated village in the San Francisco Bay Area. What started as something of a joke amongst friends became world news in the early 1990’s .The Beijing newspaper, The People’s Daily, held up Mayor Bosco as an example of why free elections don't work. That prompted a story about Mayor Bosco on the NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw. Then in the wake of the historical Chinese protest in Tiananmen Square, Chinese students from Stanford University and UC Berkeley invited Bosco – and he accepted -- to be part of their protest in front of the Chinese Embassy in San Francisco. Reporters from around the world came to Sunol to meet Mayor Bosco. Japanese journalists interviewed Bosco and his staff and a Tibetan priest arrived at the Sunol Lounge, requesting to meet a famous canine. News services in Germany and Holland carried the stories.
When not representing the serious side of independence and creativity in democracy, Bosco was always a hit with Sunol residents when he led Halloween parades for Sunol Glen School, or wore his tuxedo vest to high social occasions. But mostly folks remember him wearing his everyday kerchief. And that is how sculptor Lena Toritch has portrayed this likeable canine.
