Why did the chicken cross the road? In Fort Thomas, the answer may be to become a local celebrity and the guest of honor at a burger fundraiser.
A Fort Thomas chicken, which the community has dubbed “Bubbles,” has been the talk of the town for almost two weeks. The feathery friend was finally captured and returned home this week after many different sightings and attempts at capture. The buzz has even turned into a community fundraising event.
“I think that’s a testament to the community in Fort Thomas,” said Bubbles’ owner Emily Bankemper. “I think it’s beautiful how everyone kind of comes together, how everyone shares in this sort of excitement and doesn’t just let it die and be ‘Oh, somebody’s chicken got out.’”
The saga appears to have begun around July 19, when a resident posted in Fort Thomas’ Facebook group that “There is a black hen or rooster on S Grand by urgent care if you lost yours!”
Later in the day on July 19, another resident reported seeing the chicken on Grand Avenue in front of St. Elizabeth. That is where Bankemper said the hen was finally rescued from.
The night Bubbles went missing, a coyote ate two of Bankemper’s chickens. Thinking that Bubbles was one of them, she didn’t think of checking Facebook for her lost chicken or asking for sightings.
Fittingly, she was at the Newport Chick-fil-A when she finally saw the first Bubbles post, a video posted on July 28 of the chicken crossing the road (literally).
“I was just like, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s ours. That’s her. Where has she been? How is it possible that she got this far?’ Because we live on the south end of Fort Thomas, and that was pretty far north,” Bankemper said. “So that was also astonishing that she made it that far from home.”
Bankemper said it seemed like a lot of people were trying to catch Bubbles, and she gave them a run for their money.
“I saw this yesterday [sic] 2 cops on it,” someone replied in the Facebook group on July 19. “They did not catch it.”
There weren’t any additional sightings for a couple of days, when a different resident posted a photo of the chicken with the caption “The escape chicken is back out in front of the entrance to St E across from Graeter’s. Tried to get him, but he didn’t want to come, and I didn’t want to go in traffic.”
The post received more than 40 comments, with many residents trying to find ways to safely catch the chicken to attempt to find its owner.
Bankemper said when she saw the post about Bubbles being on Grandview Avenue, she decided to drive over there quickly before an appointment she had to make. She said she chased the hen around, but to no avail. That’s when she texted her boyfriend about finding the chicken.
He volunteered to go, and 25 minutes later, she got a text with a photo of Bubbles finally captured.
“We’ve been making a joke now that all of us city slickers couldn’t get her, myself included, and my boyfriend lives out in Southern Campbell County, so we were saying we just needed a country boy to come get her,” Bankemper said.
The tale of the escaped chicken has turned into a full-fledged fundraiser for Bankemper’s homeschool Co-Op, Woodland Schoolhouse. Midway Café, located at 1017 S Ft Thomas Ave., reached out to her wanting to have an event featuring Bubbles.
The fundraiser event, “Bubbles and Burgers,” is a reverse Chick-fil-A theme: eat more burgers. Midway Café will donate $1 from every burger sold on Aug. 11 to Woodland Schoolhouse. The school is nature-based, and Bankemper plans to use the funds raised to update its outdoor classrooms.
They are also doing $2 raffle tickets for a dozen Bubbles’ eggs.
Bubbles will be the guest of honor, and there will be a tip jar to take photos with her.
“Thank you to the people who cared and were kind enough to post pictures and updates, and since they posted those pictures, that’s how we were able to find her and get her back home,” Bankemper said. “I really appreciate the community rallying around and keeping an animal safe and off the street.”