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Bubba the School Cat

Bubba the School Cat - Student ID
Facebook - BubbatheSchoolCat
Bubba the School Cat - Student ID

Bubba the School Cat has been with the same group of students through middle school and now into high school.  In 2017, will Bubba graduate with the rest of his class? 

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Bubba the Cat was adopted from an animal shelter in 2009. His human family lives in San Jose, California, right behind Leland High School where his two human “brothers” attend classes.

He followed them to nearby Bret Harte Middle School in 2010. He quickly became a fixture on campus and such a celebrity that in 2012 the students petitioned (unsuccessfully) to put up a statue in his honor.

Now that the boys attend Leland High School, Bubba is there every day, from first bell to the last sports practice. He is very sociable, wandering in and out of classrooms, letting students pet him, accepting treats. He’s been featured in the school newspaper, had his own page in the yearbook and made the cover of last year’s senior magazine.

The school has outdoor halls – all the classroom doors open to the outside, so it’s easy for Bubba to roam from class to class. Even the teachers are accustomed to seeing him sitting at a desk or lounging on the floor. After classes let out, he might head to the soccer field, or watch the cheerleaders practice.

When everyone is gone for the day, finally Bubba heads home – except for the time he was accidentally locked in a classroom for 36 hours, until a security guard heard his loud meows and let him out.

Bubba is microchipped, and has a collar with tags that let people know it’s okay for him to be at either school, that he’s not lost or a stray.

My favorite Bubba story is about registration day, when Leland High students lined up to get their picture taken. Being the social type, Bubba was in line with the kids. The photographer needed a test subject and Bubba was more than willing to help out. Yep – they put his picture on an official student ID!

You can see pictures of Bubba and read more about him by visiting his Facebook page, “Bubba the School Cat”. He might have made history by becoming the first official feline student.

I suspect a lot of us might have enjoyed school a little more if Bubba had been our classmate, when we were speaking of pets.

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Mindy Norton has been “Speaking of Pets” on Alabama Public Radio since 1995.
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