Rescued Tortoise Makes Special Guest Appearance at Fairway Pumpkin Run

When the Fairway Elementary first-graders crossed the finish line at their annual school Pumpkin Run fundraiser on Oct. 23, a special celebrity guest was there to greet them.

Franklin: a desert tortoise who lives as a pet in one of the neighborhoods around Fairway.

“As those first-graders came across the finish line, they were so cute because he was standing right there,” said Fairway Principal Dr. Lorinda Krey. “The kids were just enthralled. The parents were enthralled.”

The meeting was more than a month in the making, after Franklin first made his presence known by crawling under a fencepost to escape from his backyard and heading to the Fairway playground during first-grade recess.

On Sept. 19, as students lined up to go back in from the playground, they were met by a strange sight: an adult desert tortoise standing between them and the building.

“This thing was ginormous,” Krey said. “The first-graders, they were stunned.”

The recess duty staff member, Kimi McAthy, brought the tortoise to the tree line behind the school to get it back in the shade and and let it go.

After school, Krey received a call from the mother of Addilyn, a first-grader who had witnessed the turtle extraction. The mother had seen posts on social media from a neighbor who had recently moved into the area about a missing tortoise named Franklin. They got Franklin when he was four days old – he’s 14 now – and they were very worried about his whereabouts.

The mother made contact with the family, who went to search the tree line where McAthy left Franklin, but they could not find him.

On her way home from work, Krey received a texted picture from Fairway’s Adventure Club facilitator, Noelle Gebhart. Franklin was back, rounding the gaga ball pit and heading toward the building.

“He was crawling toward people because he is truly a pet,” Krey said. “He loves people. He was craving people.”

With Franklin again contained – for the moment – Krey relayed to the night custodian, Donna Prost, to keep an eye on the wayward tortoise until his family could come pick him up. Krey then connected with Franklin’s family, who came to the school to collect him and end the ordeal.

With tortoise safely in hand, Krey told the family it was like they were living out a live version of the classic children’s book, “Franklin Goes to School.”

“So many people poured in, so many people contributed to the effort to get them reunited,” Krey said. “The core values of what we all stand for, every single one of them was followed through this process: empathy, integrity, grit, self-control. It was just all the people taking care of each other through this thing and ultimately benefiting this sweet little desert tortoise. And that dude's fast. He was crawling all over the place.”

Franklin’s visit also inspired the students to learn more about desert tortoises. And because the species is critically endangered, students started learning more about endangered species, natural habitats and conservation in general.

As the Pumpkin Run approached, Franklin’s family reached out to Krey to see if she would be open to another visit from the school’s new shelled friend. This time, a scheduled one.

Franklin showed up at the school to cheer his elementary friends on during their Pumpkin Run, hang out with Eddie the Eagle and even contribute to the cause. His parents wrote a check for $100, which put the PTO over its $20,000 goal for the event.

So, in addition to all of the other commotion Franklin has caused at Fairway, his donation sent Krey and assistant principal Katie Johnson to spend a night on the roof, a promise they made to the school community if it reached the PTO’s fundraising goal.

“It’s just the sense of building community that you don't have to have a child at Fairway to be a part of our Fairway family and community,” Krey said. “It is the cutest story.”