Lost Stuffed Tiger Hobbes Goes on Tampa Airport Adventure
TAMPA, Fla., June 17 (UPI) — Workers at Tampa International Airport took a young boy’s lost stuffed tiger for a photographic tour of the airport before returning the toy to its owner.
The airport said the Lost and Found department received a phone call on a Saturday morning a few weeks ago about a 6-year-old boy named Owen who had lost his stuffed tiger, Hobbes, while preparing to fly to Houston with his parents.
The hub’s janitorial services crew found Hobbes — which bears a strong resemblance to the stuffed tiger of the same name from Bill Watterson’s comic strip Calvin and Hobbes — near the children’s play area at Airside C and brought it to the Airport Operations Center, where Manager Tony D’Aiuto had the idea to take it on a tour.
“I pitched this idea a couple of months ago after I saw a similar idea where someone took a stuffed lion around a museum,” D’Auito said. “This seemed like the perfect opportunity.”
The tiger was pictured in locations including outside the air traffic control tower, the employee gym, a hammock by the Marriott pool and riding in a luggage cart.
D’Auito had the photos printed into a hardbound book and he left the album with Hobbes at the Lost and Found for Owen’s family.
Amanda Lake, Owen’s mother, said she cried when she saw the album upon returning to Tampa June 11.
“It was very, very sweet,” Lake said. “We already told him over and over that Hobbes was on an adventure so it was nice to get back and show him that Hobbes really had been on an adventure.”
“Thank you to everyone at Tampa International Airport who took such great care of Hobbes. It was such a nice surprise,” she said.
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