By Dominik Lobkowicz
With her classmates Rachel Barbour and Mark Hafer, Cali Readinger (left) holds up a copy of “The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School.” The kindergarteners got the idea to put up posters of their own runaway gingerbread man, Gingy, from the book, Readinger said. (D. Lobkowicz photo) |
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Isaac Mullen holds up a poem about a missing gingerbread man and a drawing of Gingy, a gingerbread man Santa Claus delivered to kindergarteners at Miller School who recently ran away. “We sure want him back,” Mullen said. “All the kids in kindergarten want him back.” (D. Lobkowicz photo) |
Kindergarteners at Miller School have mounted a search after their new friend, a gingerbread man delivered by Santa Claus, ran away in recent days.
Santa Claus delivers a gingerbread man to Miller’s kindergarten each year, according to Principal Julia Levensaler, but the confectionery characters have shown a
propensity for running away.
Along with the kindergarteners, the Waldoboro Police Department has joined in the search.
“Let’s face it, this time of year we have lots of reports of gingerbread men going missing. We take it seriously every year,” Waldoboro Police Chief Bill Labombarde
said Dec. 9. “We’ve had pretty good luck getting them back, but we take each one individually.”
After the gingerbread man arrived in early December, the students voted to name him “Gingy,” as they have in years past, said Assistant Principal Casey Lufkin.
Students’ descriptions of the gingerbread man are similar to those Claus has delivered before: brown, and last seen wearing a baker’s hat and pink, green, and red
buttons. Labombarde said the missing gingerbread man is an estimated 12 inches in height and has black eyes.
According to Lufkin, Claus left a note about the gingerbread man, warning the students to “watch him very carefully, he’s very sneaky.”
“He came on the day where we were reading our first gingerbread book,” said kindergartener Cali Readinger.
“Mrs. Lufkin saw the package [that Claus brought] on the ground, and somehow we heard bells in the box” but it was a gingerbread man inside, said fellow student
Sammie Davis.
The bells may have brought the gingerbread man to life, one student supposed.
Rachel Barbour said Gingy stayed with the kindergarteners for a couple of days before he ran away.
“We left him behind, right on the window, and when we got back he was gone,” said Zachary Curtis.
After Gingy went missing, kindergarteners put up posters around the school with drawings of their friend.
According to Cali Readinger, the kindergarteners got the idea from a book they read called “The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School,” where students made such
posters.
Kindergarteners at Miller School in Waldoboro hung “Missing!” posters all around the school to help find their runaway gingerbread man, Gingy. (D. Lobkowicz photo) |
“We can’t find Gingy because the posters really aren’t working that much,” Readinger said.
Still, reported sightings of Gingy have been coming in.
Patricia Smith’s first-grade class sent a note, dated Dec. 8, letting the kindergarteners know the first-graders spotted Gingy sleeping in their classroom that day
after lunch.
“We think that Cookie, our elf, and Gingie [sic] are friends,” the note reads. “Cookie is still here, but Gingie has disappeared!”
Someone also saw Gingy in a school bathroom on Dec. 8, Sammie Davis said, and he has been seen around Waldoboro.
“We’ve had sightings downtown, at Moody’s Diner in the back kitchen area, and at Dunkin’ Donuts,” Labombarde said. The police department have apprehended other
runaway gingerbread men at the doughnut shop and diner in recent years, according to The Lincoln County News archives.
Labombarde said the police department is taking Gingy’s disappearance seriously.
“We are monitoring this situation closely, as we do with most missing person reports,” Labombarde said.
As Gingy remains on the loose, however, kindergarteners are growing concerned.
“We miss him,” Davis said.
“We sure want him back,” said Isaac Mullen. “All the kids in kindergarten want him back.”
