Sculpture Honors Mike The Headless Chicken By Nancy Lofholm - Denver Post Western Slope Bureau http://www.denverpost.com/news/headless.htm 4-4-00

A sculpture of Mike - the Fruita, Colorado chicken that lived for 18 months in the 1940s minus his head - is being permanently installed in a flower planter on a downtown corner today. The 4-foot-high Mike likeness is appropriately made from 300 pounds of old metal farm castoffs that include ax heads, sickle blades, hay-rake teeth and other cutting objects. The Fruita Chamber of Commerce decided to enshrine Mike because the rooster, which hopped off the chopping block and went on the sideshow circuit instead of into the cooking pot, has brought the world's notice to this town of 6,000 more than half a century later. Fruita's reputation for mountain biking and dinosaurs has paled beside the attention drawn by a bird without a head. Since his bizarre tale was publicized last year, when the town held its first Mike the Headless Chicken Festival, Fruita chamber officials and historians have been inundated with thousands of calls, letters and e-mails, from New Delhi to Auckland, wanting more information about Mike. The curious most often ask "Was Mike for real?" He was. Mike belonged to the late Fruita farmer Lloyd Olsen, who, in an attempt to please his finicky mother-in-law, lopped off Mike's head at the base of the skull, leaving as much of the tasty neck as possible. Following his beheading, Mike fluffed up his feathers and went about his normal chicken business. But he could only go through the motions of pecking for food, and when he tried to crow, a gurgle came out. Olsen started putting feed and water directly into Mike's gullet with an eyedropper when he was still alive the next morning. When Mike was still alive a week later, Olsen took him to incredulous University of Utah scientists, who theorized Mike had enough of a brain stem left to live headless. Olsen hired Mike a manager, who took him on tour around the country. Mike was pictured in a Life magazine spread and listed in the Guiness Book of Records. He was a popular attraction until he choked to death on a corn kernel in an Arizona motel. Mike's story languished in scrapbooks until last spring, when chamber of commerce officials were looking for something more interesting than pioneers to focus on for Colorado Heritage Week. The rest is headless history. Sally Edginton, the chamber's executive director, said she wasn't prepared for the frenzy that followed, which hasn't abated over the last year. Mike has been featured in TV, radio and newspaper stories around the world. Denver songwriter Timothy P. Irvin has recorded a song about him. Mike's story will be featured in a PBS documentary this spring. His "cyber coop" Web site (<.link has had more than 7,000 hits since it was created in January. Now Mike has been memorialized in metal by artist Lyle Nichols, who grew up in Fruita. "I made him proud-looking and cocky," said Nichols, who noted with a laugh that he gave the Fruita chamber a discount on the piece because it didn't have a head.

-- Cluck (cluck@cluck.cluck), April 04, 2000

Answers

OMG! =o(

-- cin (cinlooo@aol.corn), April 05, 2000.

This should also be in the culture thread. For those who would keep that thread alive, take a look at this and some other postings of news articles on this and the old board.

You will have plenty of input.

Wow!

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), April 05, 2000.

I re-told this story at work. I don't think anyone believed me!

-- cin (cinloo@aol.corn), April 07, 2000.

Cin, can you remember any story pre-y2k from TB2K that you retold to "real life" people and they believed you? ;-)

I'm not gonna relate this one to anyone...uh uh! Learned my lesson!

-- Chris (!@#$@pond.com), April 07, 2000.

The real Mike...



-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), April 07, 2000.