Rubber ducks follow geology professor to school one day
by Mary Barrera, Editor-In-Chief

    They attend geology lab every Monday and Wednesday at 11 a.m.
    Sometimes they come alone, and sometimes they come in pairs.
    Most of them look alike, but some have wandered in wearing nothing but a hat.
    No matter what their appearance, they all get special attention at the beginning of each class.
    Since early this spring, rubber ducks have waddled their way into Jim Black's Geology II lab. The ducks have continued to file in and now are a flock.
    Black, an avid duck hunter, began to conspire to use the yellow rubber ducks on his next hunting trip.
    "It would be funny to put these [toy ducks] out as decoys and watch the looks on the other hunters' faces," he said.
     On a recent Monday morning, three ducks were smuggled into class by students.
     Upon entering the classroom, Black noticed a large plush blue duck on his desk. With the same surprised grin he gives all his ducks, he laughed and swaggered over to get a closer look at it.
     "I can't use this one as a decoy; it would sink," he said with a grin.
     One student spotted a sticker that said "press here," so Black did just that. The duck began to vibrate and spin while Quackety-Quack, Don't Talk Back began to play, and the duck began to quack.
     "Well, I take that back. I guess I can use this one as a [duck] call," he said.
     After putting the big duck in line behind some other ducks, Black noticed the water running in the sink. Walking toward the sink he inquired, "What's the deal with this water?"
     He reached for the faucet, but before he could turn it off, he began to laugh.
     "There's a duck in the water," Black said.
     It was a rubber ducky atop a bath sponge.
     "This is getting real sophisticated," he said.
     Black fished the duck out of the water, setting him aside to dry before putting him in the line up as well.
     As lab started, students began to point and say there was one more in "the chair."
    The chair, a generally unoccupied student chair, is the spot where the original ducks would appear. Every lab period, there would always be one in the chair.
     Black retrieved the yellow duck on a rubber raft. He smiled with amusement and placed it in another of his three rows of ducks.
     "I have a special surprise for you, too," he said to his students.
     In the lecture class that follows the lab, Black handed out rubber ducky necklaces to his students.
     "I think someone started the duck thing to add a little fun to the class," Laura Eades, a geology lab student, said. "He seems to just get such a kick out of it."
     Twenty-five ducks in all have joined the geology lab class, which now consists of more ducks than students.
     The yellow rubber ducks come in various sizes, some with accessories. One duck wears a spring hat; one wears sunglasses, and one wears a scarf and rides a snowboard.
     A small Donald Duck is part of the group, which also includes a green duck in a sailor suit.
     They are all proudly displayed throughout the room as a token of the students' affection for their teacher and his affection for them.
     "Whoever is doing this ducky thing; it makes me feel very special," he said.