Once a week, a small yellow package — soft, squeaky and duck-shaped — appears on each house secretary’s desk. But the delivery man, junior Owen Waith-Mair, doesn’t wait for a signature; he just heads to his next class.
Owen’s rubber duck deliveries began about a month into the start of the school year, and haven’t stopped since. What was started as a one-time delivery became a newfound campus tradition. He now regularly delivers the rubber ducks to various people in the school, e s p e c i a l l y secretaries and teachers.
“He’s always loved rubber ducks,” Owen’s mother and English III assistant teacher Antionette Waith-Mair said. “Every year for Christmas, he gets something to do with rubber ducks. In fact, he just got an event calendar with ducks in it.”
Owen’s idea for giving out rubber ducks originated from a visit to house secretary Donna Sharp’s desk.
“[Owen] hangs out a lot around Mrs. Sharp’s desk,” Antionette said. “He saw that she had gotten a little Jesus [figurine] on her desk, and then a second little Jesus. Then from there, he said, ‘maybe I should start leaving little ducks.’ So we found some little ducks online and he started leaving them.”
Inspired by Sharp’s collection, Owen quickly began his deliveries with all the house secretaries.
“Honestly, I started with [the secretaries] because they were the easiest,” Owen said. “I really like rubber ducks. They’re just so amazing and cute. So whenever I get a new type of duck, I like to spread them around.”
When the first rubber duck appeared on their desk, the house secretaries were initially confused.
“The first duck I got, I didn’t know [why] I was getting it,” Gold 2 house secretary Kimberly Poe said. “He snuck it down to my desk when I wasn’t looking, so I didn’t know who was doing it at first, but I get very excited when he comes by with ducks now.”
Poe has already received 17 unique rubber ducks, and Blue 2 house secretary Jacqueline Contreras has received nine.
“When one secretary gets a duck, everyone comes together and tells each other,” Contreras said. “Then everybody knows what’s coming and we start looking for them. We all start to get excited.”
Owen began with secretaries because of the close nature of his relationships with many of them.
“He loves the secretaries,” Antionette said. “The secretaries have always been so nice to him and they brighten his day, so he want[ed] to do something little for them to show that he cares. He just thinks it’s fun to do something with the secretaries.”
But Owen didn’t stop with secretaries: he soon began to pass out rubber ducks to teachers, assistant principals and even students.
“I’m happy that I’ve gotten ducks as well,” Blue 2 Assistant Principal Josie Delgado said. “I think he just loves to bring joy every day. He always tells us good morning and wishes us a great day. He’s all about spreading that joy and sunshine to everybody. He’s a super cool, sweet kid.”
Owen’s hiding of rubber ducks in his classes has earned him nicknames such as the “Lord of Ducks” from his classmates, especially in his computer science and robotics classes.
“He’s always been a really good son,” Antionette said. “Every day after school, he remotely turns on the car for me, opens the door and then puts my bag in for me. He’s a gentleman.”
After seeing the larger-than-expected impact his rubber ducks have had on the school, Owen doesn’t plan on stopping his deliveries anytime soon.
“Nowadays, I feel like people don’t have enough to be happy about, so I like to bring these ducks to bring them joy,” Owen said. “That is definitely one of my motivations; because these little ducks just bring me so much joy, so I want to share that with everyone.”
