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WILKES-BARRE — St. Nicholas Roman Catholic Church on South Washington Street has a new pastor and outside the rectory, a welcoming committee faithfully stands.

Seven pink flamingos, now adorned for the fall/winter weather with crocheted sweaters, have followed new pastor Rev. Joseph Verespy to his new flock.

Deacon Bill Behm said Father Verespy brought three pink flamingos — the artificial variety known best for being lawn ornaments in the 1960s — with him when he was appointed pastor at St. Nick’s in July by the Scranton Diocese.

According to Behm, Verespy had a flock of plastic pink flamingos at his church in Dupont and he brought three of them with him to St. Nick’s on South Washington Street in Wilkes-Barre. The flock has grown to seven currently.

“The flamingos were in Father Verespy’s trunk for some time,” Behm said. “Then he placed them in the grass behind the rectory, and they kind of caught on.”

Behm said the children who attend St. Nick’s School, especially those in the lower grades, have really taken to their new pink friends. Behm said the flamingos have become the school’s mascots, in a manner of speaking.

“Some of the children come over and give the flamingos kisses before going to school,” Behm said. “And the popularity of the flamingos has caught on with adults in the parish as well.”

Behm said the flamingos seem to move about, often found in different locations from day to day. Even Behm is guilty of doing that.

“I did place one outside of Father Verespy’s office window, kind of peering in,” Behm said. “They have become quite a positive influence throughout the St. Nick’s parish. I won’t be surprised if the flock grows.”

The crocheted sweaters just appeared one day, Behm said, adding that the person who made the sweaters and placed them on the flamingos is unknown.

“The joke was that the pink flamingos were going to turn blue when the weather turned colder,” Behm said. “Next thing we know, the flamingos were wearing the sweaters.”

Fast facts about the plastic pink flamingo

According to the website tumblr.com:

• Designed in 1957, the pink plastic lawn flamingo was one of Don Featherstone’s earliest projects at Union Products in Leominster, Massachusetts. Then a fresh-out-of-art-school sculptor who’d been hired specifically to create 3D plastic lawn and garden ornaments, Featherstone couldn’t get his hands on a real live flamingo, so he modeled his prototypes after photos he’d seen in National Geographic.

• Featherstone was specifically asked to sculpt a flamingo after working on designs for a girl with a watering can, a boy with a dog and a duck. At the time, pink was a very trendy color.

• The plastic birds briefly went extinct in 2006, when Union Products stopped producing them and went out of business due to financial woes and the rising costs of electricity and plastic resins. The birds were resurrected in 2007 when a company called HMC International bought the copyright and original molds.

• The pink plastic lawn flamingo has been the official bird of Madison, Wisconsin, since 2009, when the city council voted to honor the beloved tchotchkes in observance of the 30th anniversary of a 1979 University of Wisconsin Madison stunt in which students covered the campus’s Bascom Hill with 1,000 of the bright pink birds.

• According to mentalfloss.com, when they first hit stores, the blushing birds cost $2.76 a pair and were an immediate hit in working-class subdivisions from the Redwood Forest to the Gulf-stream waters. The birds currently go for about $16 a set online.

Flamingos sit in the bushes wearing crocheted sweaters at St. Nicholas Church in Wilkes-Barre on Wednesday.
https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/web1_TTL101316Flamingo1-5.jpg.optimal.jpgFlamingos sit in the bushes wearing crocheted sweaters at St. Nicholas Church in Wilkes-Barre on Wednesday. Sean McKeag | Times Leader
Plastic flamingos greet visitors to St. Nick’s in Wilkes-Barre

By Bill O’Boyle

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Reach Bill O’Boyle at 570-991-6118 or on Twitter @TLBillOBoyle.