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"Sit down. I have a bit of an unusual story to tell you," grinned Sheriff Marty Arganbright in his office Tuesday morning.
It seems a few weeks back one of Arganbright's reserve deputies was on patrol east of Guthrie Center on Highway 44 near the airport when he reported to the dispatcher that he had nearly struck an animal in the road.
What type of animal you might ask?
Arganbright reported the deputy initially stated it was a "moose without antlers." Through the discussion with the dispatcher, the deputy claimed he was 100% certain it wasn't a deer, then finally decided it must have been an elk.
Not yet an entirely politically correct sheriff's office, the deputy has been the butt of joke after joke in the department ever since.
Until last week.
That's when Greg Kenyon, who runs an elk farm on Grant Avenue just west of Wichita, called the sheriff to report a missing elk.
A cow.
The type without antlers.
On any given day, Kenyon has about 160 head of elk on his farm.
Kenyon stated Tuesday morning he's not exactly sure how long the cow has been missing. During the winter, the herd tends to bunch together, so instead of getting an individual pen count, Kenyon simply checked his fence lines (which are eight feet tall) for integrity and the rest of the enclosure to make sure there were no carcasses.
It wasn't until last week that he did a detailed count and discovered one of his hybrid genetic cows, valued at approximately $2,500, was missing.
How to identify her (other than the obvious fact that she would be the only elk in your neighborhood)?
"She has a white dangle tag #431 in her ear," noted Kenyon.
Kenyon asked anyone seeing her to contact him at 641-740-5077. "She'll run if someone else approaches her, but she's comfortable around me."
According to Kenyon, a full grown cow weighs in at approximately 600 pounds.
"That'll put a big dent in your hood if you hit one," commented Arganbright.
Kenyon, who has raised elk for approximately 15 years, sells about 20-30 head per year for consumption by restaurants and another 12-15 bulls to other farms, primarily in Texas, either for stud purposes or for trophy hunting.
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©Guthrie Center Times 2013
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