Famed turkey is missing from Wichita intersection, spurring speculation, mourning
Over the last two years at Central and Greenwich, a wild turkey has become a fond and familiar sight, a feathered celebrity pecking at tires, nibbling on scattered snacks and running down cars with unmatched nerve.
He goes by many names — Pablo, Drumstick and Tom, to name a few. But to most, including Samantha Vohs who runs a fan page for the feisty fowl, he was simply the turkey at Central and Greenwich.
Now the fate of Wichita’s most famous bird has become the subject of social media chatter after posts circulated over the weekend claiming he had died.
“We don’t know for sure. I mean, how could we?” Vohs said. “It’s kind of like turkey lore at this point ... People are speculating, is the turkey actually dead? We will never, ever know for sure, I think.”
Confirmed or not, the rumors — and the lack of recent sightings in his usual spots — have stirred some to mourn a beloved bird whose legend stretched well beyond a street corner.
The turkey at Central and Greenwich was best known for chasing cars, holding up traffic and popping up in countless social media photos and videos as an unlikely ambassador for the businesses nearby. Store owners and employees said his favorite pastimes included eating snacks, blocking shop entrances and generally bringing commerce to a brief standstill.
“He became quite an icon,” said Roger Placzek, one of the founders of The Popcorner. “People would come here to see Tom. He was here daily.”
No one can say exactly when the turkey first claimed the northeast Wichita intersection, but by the summer of 2024, he was regularly documented as being there. Since then, he’s turned a street-corner routine into a list of recognitions: a mayoral pardon, features in local and national media and a pin on Google Maps.
Vohs became the accidental archivist of Wichita’s wandering gobbler in July 2024 when she spotted the turkey doing what he did best — chasing after cars.
“It was just so funny and so out of the ordinary,” she said. “How often do you see something like that?”
She filmed the encounter but couldn’t find a good place to post it, so she created a Facebook page dedicated to the intersection’s feathery fixture.
Soon, families across Wichita were taking “turkey hunts” — not with rifles, but with smartphones and kids in tow, searching the intersection for a glimpse of the local legend.
“Families would message me like, ‘We went turkey hunting with our kids today, and the kids were really excited,’” she said. “This is really just like a community bird.”
Few people knew the turkey better than Placzek, who co-owns the The Popcorner shop near the intersection.
The turkey became part of his daily routine and, he said, a guest for employees and customers alike to look forward to seeing.
“He would come right up to people,” Placzek said. “I spent a lot of my time during the day with him, shooing him away from cars or feeding him.”
“He was my emotional support turkey,” he added with a laugh. “Things are really stressful throughout the day, and people would go, ‘Your bird’s here, Tom’s here,’ and I’d go out and it would just change my mood.”
Sometimes that devotion meant standing in traffic.
“I personally was out in the middle of Central and Greenwich shoo-ing him,” Placzek said. “And I thought, why am I out here? I’m going to get hit by a car for a turkey.”
“But that’s just the way it was,” he said. “We miss him. Really do.”
Placzek often checked on the bird during storms or frigid winter nights. For quite a time, Placzek and Vohs said, the turkey was believed to roost somewhere behind the strip mall before migrating more south toward Douglas.
“I would come over here during stormy weather, cold winter days — because we’re closed Sundays — to check on him,” Placzek said. “He’d be all hunkered down in the parking lot.”
In November 2025, The Popcorner created a custom popcorn tin featuring the famous fowl that Placzek said flew off the shelves.
The turkey was also regularly treated with unsalted peanuts and white popcorn kernels, Placzek said, in addition to the grapes, berries and other snacks provided by other business employees and turkey enthusiasts.
While friendly, Placzek said the turkey was territorial, and had a particular disdain for mail trucks (and mail carriers), as well as brightly colored cars. He was also incredibly stubborn; Placzek and Vohs recalled when wildlife authorities tried and failed to catch him.
“There were probably ten grown men trying to catch this turkey,” Vohs said. “They had these big nets, and he evaded all these men for hours. That’s probably one of my favorite memories.”
Moments like that made the turkey feel less like wildlife and more like a whimsical neighbor, which is why rumors of his death brought out a strong reaction from some.
“People have very strong feelings,” Vohs said. “Some said seeing videos on the turkey page kind of helped them through a depression. It was just something bright and shiny for the community.”
Placzek agreed; whether he was watching the turkey through his store windows with his young grandchildren or luring the bird away from cautious customers, its presence was meaningful.
“Sometimes you’d just drop everything, go out and feed the turkey and talk to him, and he would make this little sound,” he said. “He was just there and I talked to him, and I swear he looked at me and knew what I was saying.”
Last Friday evening and Saturday morning, Vohs said she received tips and photos from people who had seen a dead turkey in a ditch near where the Central and Greenwich turkey was last known to frequent. She thinks Wichita’s wandering turkey has held up his last lane of traffic, but no one can say for certain as rumors, sightings and speculation continue to swirl online.
In the meantime, Vohs plans to keep the Facebook page alive with videos and memories of the turkey in the coming weeks. She’s also considering organizing a memorial or vigil.
“I don’t know what that would look like right now,” she said. “But I might contact businesses around there if they want to host some kind of remembrance thing where people can pop in.”
Dead or alive, gone or merely gobbling somewhere down the road, the bird has achieved something rare for a wild turkey: a place in local lore and in the fond memories of the people who watched him wander.
“I was honored when that bird pecked my tire,” Vohs said. “He really has a little tiny history here.”
This story was originally published March 24, 2026 at 10:45 AM.
