Tuesday-morning storm topples, mangles a popular Kansas roadside attraction
The severe thunderstorms that swept across south-central Kansas early Tuesday downed trees and tore roofs from buildings.
They also appear to have felled an iconic roadside attraction, who when the sun rose on Tuesday was found toppled and dismembered along I-135 just south of McPherson. The storm’s wind gusts, which reached nearly 60 mph in McPherson, had nearly swept the sweeper away.
Best known as the Happy Chef, the 28-foot fiberglass statue that in 2000 got a new identity as a chimney sweep and a new home between mileposts 56 and 57, was discovered flat on his back by passersby on Tuesday morning. His mangled legs nearby, and the chimney sweep brush he’s gripped for 26 years was in pieces.
One of the first to document the destruction was James Mickley, a McPherson resident who heard from his sister that the storm had taken the chimney sweep down. A hobby aerial photographer, Mickley packed his drone and stopped to photograph the damage on his way to a work call in Moundridge.
“I was kind of sad,” he said. “It’s been damaged for a while. It was already struggling, so it didn’t come as a super big surprise to see it was on the road in pieces.”
In fact, the iconic chimney sweep — which is listed on roadside attraction websites — had been in danger for some time. Last month, its owner — Brady Baus of Chimney & Stone Specialists in McPherson — told local television stations that the statue had reached a crossroads. After 25 years of being targeted by vandals and harsh Kansas weather, the chimney sweep was leaning to the left, was riddled with bullet holes and was missing pieces of his lower body.
Baus, who inherited the statue when he bought his business in 2015, said in interviews that he understood the significance the statue held but that repair estimates were astronomical. He hoped that locals would help contribute to a restoration. (Baus could not be immediately reached on Tuesday morning.)
The statue started its life as a dancing, spoon-waving chef perched outside the Happy Chef, a 24-hour greasy spoon restaurant at the intersection of I-135 and U.S. 56. The chef had been beckoning customers into the restaurant for 29 years when, in the summer of 1999, the restaurant closed.
The Minnesota-based Happy Chef chain said it would have to destroy the chef — at the time, one of only three remaining statues in the country — if a local didn’t step up and claim him.
A bidding war broke out, and the winner was Vaughn Juhnke, who owned Chimney Specialists at the time and was a longtime fan of the restaurant. He announced that he’d purchased the statue and planned to turn it into a chimney sweep.
He gave the chef a $3,000 makeover, replacing his chefs hat with a plastic stovepipe hat and the spoon with a chimney flue brush. In April of 2000, Juhnke had the chef installed on the highway beside a billboard advertising his business.
Then, 16 years later, Baus bought the business and became the sweeper’s keeper.
This story will be updated when The Eagle is able to reach Baus about his plans for the statue.
This story was originally published June 17, 2025 at 12:33 PM.
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