PORT TOWNSEND — Students at Mountain View Elementary will be wearing pink today in memory of Pinkey, a popular figure on the school campus who is missing and presumed stolen.
That Pinkey is a pink plastic flamingo doesn’t make the theft any less shocking.
“Someone just took it, and left one of the legs behind,” said Larry Pepper, the bird’s owner. “The children were quite upset.”
Until Friday before last, Pinkey and her mate, Blinkey, stood outside a portable classroom where Pepper teaches music. Dark pink with glassy black eyes and wiry legs, the pair were a Christmas gift from teacher Rocky Sorenson, who knew of Pepper’s penchant for deploying flocks of flamingos in his yard. Pinkey and Blinkey migrated to the music portable in January, Pepper said, where they last seen grazing in the grass on Friday, Jan. 24.
By Monday, Blinkey was still there, but Pinkey was gone.
“I usually take them in on weekends, but I had broken my ankle the previous week and can’t get around,” Pepper said. “I thought Port Townsend was a safe place for flamingos.”
When word got out that Pinkey was missing, students in Chris Laughbon’s fifth-grade class decided not to take the news sitting down.
“We walk by the flamingos every day when we go to lunch,” Laughbon said. “We were aghast that Pinkey was gone. Some of the children were quite sad.”
Laughbon said her students also love a mystery and are determined to solve the crime. One group formed an investigative team, photographing the crime scene and interviewing Bridget Spegal, the student who first reported the disappearance. Others put up posters and passed out pink ribbons with feathers to raise awareness of the foul deed. A research team is studying flamingos and their habitats, and the class is writing odes to Pinkey as part of a poetry lesson.
“We decided to turn it into a learning experience,” Laughbon said.
Pinkey’s theft has also provided a civics lesson on the morality of stealing, prompting students to write letters to newspaper editors.
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