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Starkville restaurant’s missing camel returned to owner heavily damaged |
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Tuesday, 14 October 2008 |
By KELLY DANIELS
Starkville Daily News
What was once a healthy looking homemade camel that stood outside Shaherazad’s restaurant on University Drive is now irreparable after it was stolen and returned.
Propped up on the restaurant’s exterior wall, the life-sized companion to nomads now appears flattened, cut open and unable to stand.
Shaherazad’s Manager Kenny Price said that the camel was discovered missing at 1:30 a.m. this past Thursday.
“I was very disappointed when I saw it,” Price said. “I understand that sometimes things are done for fun, but this was just...”
Price could not finish his statement.
Inside the restaurant, under the food counter, a jar still sits with 600 pieces of paper suggestions for the camel’s name.
“We’re getting a new camel in, so I guess I can extend the contest for about 10 days,” Price said.
The winner gets dinner for two once a month at Shaherazad’s for an entire year.
Price’s father, A.J. Price, who constructed the $2,000 camel, is also constructing the new one.
Price had also made a life-size man to stand with the camel “to keep him safe” in the evenings.
“You should see him with his canteen,” his son said.
Before returning to the restaurant, the camel was last seen outside the house of the Mississippi State University chapter of Delta Gamma sorority.
“He just appeared on our porch,” said Mitsy Bailey, house mother for Delta Gamma.
“I don’t really know what he looked like before, but I don’t think it looked like this,” she said, referring to its damaged appearance.
Bailey, who filed a police report, said that she found the camel as soon as she went outside.
The surveillance camera outside the Delta Gamma revealed the suspect as a white male with long hair and a striped shirt.
His face was undetectable.
“The manager brought his father over. That made you feel even worse for him,” Bailey said.
Because the Delta Gamma house is the first house on Sorority Row, she continued, it is the recipient of a lot of pranks from the nearby fraternities.
“It would probably be funny, if those boys hadn’t damaged the thing,” she said.
A.J. Price reported that he could not fix the camel.
Price used to go riding with his church crew during the Christmas season to look at neighborhood decorations and lights when he noticed that there were too many Rudolfs and not enough wise men.
“I just told myself, I said, ‘Next year, I’m going to make myself a real Christmas scene,’ “ said Price.
During his daily two-mile walk with his wife, Price picked up a pack of Camel cigarettes and used it as a model for his first camel.
“I put it on a projector, so I had a life-size camel on the wall, and I just cut a pattern,” he said.
Using this image, Price constructed the camel out of chicken wire, duck tape, insulation and camel fur.
For the eyes, he took two wooden Easter eggs and painted them black. This somehow turned into a a camel with realistic features.
“That’s how it came about,” said Price, whose lit nativity scene on top of his house drew attention from both neighbors and the media.
Outside Shaherazad’s, Price’s life-size man — which he calls “The Sheik” — sports a Middle Eastern look and stands in front of his old camel waiting for the new one.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 15 October 2008 )
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