Bryan Ryan, a Pre-Calculus teacher, started at Timber Creek in 2010, the year after the school opened and the same year the duck phenomenon began.
“I started [getting rubber ducks] about oh, maybe seven years ago. It started with just an eraser that was a duck, and the student didn’t want to keep the eraser so he just left it on my desk. I told him ‘You left your eraser on my desk’, and he said ‘That’s okay you can have it’, and so it stayed there for awhile. Then students kept asking why do you have a duck on your desk, and I told them where it came from and then all of a sudden students kept bringing me rubber ducks, that same year,” said Ryan.
With each consecutive school year the duck craze continued with the new curious students he would get.
“I think I had maybe four ducks from one year, and so I just kind of left them on my desk until the next year. People asked ‘Why do you have those ducks on your desk’, and I told them the story. Then all of a sudden I started getting about 15 every year, and now I have a giant inflatable duck,” said Ryan.
Ryan’s 2016-17 3B class took his duck collection to the next level. With cooperation of faculty and fellow students they brought him an inflatable duck that occupies close to four desk that they centered in the front of his room once he came back from vacation.
“Well they brought the giant duck Friday, and then had another teacher get me out of the room and distract me, while they put it in my room. They already had the duck blown up, but they had to get it down this hallway and so the teacher distracting me took me into the teacher work room, and then when I came in, it was sitting right in the front of the room. It was a crazy sight,” said Ryan.
Because the duck occupies a large amount of classroom space and seating, Ryan is making other arrangements for how to display the duck.
“I think I’m going to take a picture of it and make sure people understand just how big it is. So I’ll print a colored picture of it and then put it up on the wall,” Ryan said. “I’ve been thinking where can I keep that thing, it’s just so big.”
The duck collection continues to grow each year and Ryan assumes to have over 130 ducks currently in his room. He claims to have counted 100 ducks two years ago, which led him to believe there is at least 130 in the 2016-17 school year.
“I had to put a shelf up last year, and I’m still running out of shelf space, I just adjust to the new ducks each year,” said Ryan.
Among all Ryan’s ducks, he can spot a few of his favorite, particularly ones that have been across the globe.
“The Bronco duck obviously has to be my favorite duck. There’s a duck from Germany, from New York, there’s one from Switzerland,” said Ryan. “It’s just students who have gone on vacation and brought back ducks from all around the world, they’re like little pieces of culture.”