Last night, UNT officials unveiled Kenny the Crane, a new mascot inspired by the university’s seemingly endless on-campus construction projects.
Kenny, who will replace Scrappy the Eagle at most campus events, is a steel tower crane standing more than 100 feet tall. When he’s not lifting heavy loads on construction sites, his hobbies include picking up litter and helping inner-city kids stay off drugs, saying that “only cranes are supposed to get high.” His motto is “Going up, up, UP!”
UNT spokesperson Ray Gelden said that while the university will miss Scrappy, Kenny the Crane better represents the campus as it is today. “You can’t walk twenty feet around this place without running into a construction site, and you can see Kenny at the new Union site for miles around. Why not make the endless construction part of our school’s traditions?”
Trey Rogers, a certified crane operator who frequently uses Kenny at the Union site, says he’s not convinced the change is a good idea. “Every day I’m up here tryin’ to run this fuckin’ crane, and all he wants to do is blab at me about turning the lights off whenever I leave a room and staying away from secondhand smoke. If he asks me to sing that goddamn ‘Drugs are Just Crane Bad’ song with him again I’m gonna dynamite the son of a bitch.”
The Electric Eagle 