Posted on Fri, Jul. 29, 2005
(http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/philly.news/local;kw=center6;c2=local;c3=local_homepage;pos=center6;group=rectangle;ord=1122639754761?)
Lost Nipper comes home to a joyful Moorestown
By Jan Hefler
Inquirer Suburban Staff
Moorestown's missing Nipper statue was welcomed home by cheering employees
of the Lutheran Home yesterday, just hours after the big brown dog in Egyptian
getup turned up in a Pennsauken woods.
Tupper - Tut's Pup had only a few scratches on his right ear, muzzle and
flank after he was stolen last week from the home's front lawn.
Tupper is one of thirty 5-foot-tall, 75-pound fiberglass Nipper sculptures
adorning the streets of Moorestown in a wildly popular public art project.
"Where was he?" a woman shouted from her minivan as she passed the
midafternoon celebration on East Main Street. "In Pennsauken," someone
replied.
Pennsauken Police Capt. Earl Griffin said a local 14-year-old boy told him
that he had gone down to the Delaware River to "catch toads" when he spotted
the statue Wednesday night off Derousse Avenue, south of the Betsy Ross
Bridge.
By 7:15 p.m., Tupper was sitting at the police station, waiting to be
claimed.
Paul C. Cranmer, executive director of the Lutheran Home, had Tupper picked
up at 1 p.m. yesterday in a wheelchair-accessible van. "The thieves probably
did it as a prank and then didn't know what to do with it after all the news
coverage and hub-bub," he said.
Griffin's theory? "It was kids or young adults being wise guys."
Cranmer said Tupper would spend the next few nights indoors before resuming
his post in front of the Lutheran Home, where Eldridge Johnson, the founder
of the Victor Talking Machine Co., once lived. The famous Nipper was the
company trademark.
After that, Tupper's bark will be augmented with what Cranmer called a "very
loud" burglar alarm
