Bemidji to BEMIDJI (AP) - The Bemidji City Council was due to meet Monday night to discuss helping to pay for restoring the landmark Babe the Blue Ox statue at the Lake Bemidji waterfront. The Bemidji Area Chamber of Commerce and the city's Rotary Club formed a committee that is asking the city for $5,000 help restore the widely rec- to restore Babe the Blue Ox tigate the deterioration. The firm estimated the total cost to restore the statue would be nearly $81,000. Minke said the committee was looking at restoration alternatives and getting ready for a community fund-raising effort. It has also applied for grants. The committee believes it will need to raise about $100,000 to completely helping ognized statue. The Chamber and the Rotary are each committing $5,000 to the effort. City Manager David Minke said the statue has deteriorated to a point where it needs to be restored because of problems with the statue's internal wooden frame and cracks in its concrete shell. Last year, Bemidji hired an engineering firm to inves- restore Babe and start an ongoing maintenance fund. The Rotary Club began building Babe in 1937. The statue was designed to travel on a truck in parades, but after a short time it was permanently mounted at the waterfront, next to a statue of lumberjack Paul Bunyan, and its canvas shell was replaced with a concrete finish.