The Story Behind Westport’s Adorable ‘Missing Cone’ Signs

At the Macomber Primary School in Westport, an orange cone is missing and the young children are very upset about it.

The school, which houses grade Pre-K through second, has started an investigation after the recent discovery that an orange traffic cone used for their outdoor class had gone missing.

Health and wellness teacher Terry Pacheco shared her story with Fun 107 and it's nothing shy of adorable, with a bit of mystery and disappointment among the students.

"With the onset of COVID and the many restrictions put into place with teaching and learning, my health and wellness classroom got moved outdoors," Pacheco said. "We needed the space in the cafeteria/gymnasium to service additional student lunches in order to keep children safely distant. With this said, I created an outdoor learning space with some cones that were generously funded by our school district. This learning space was safely marked with boundaries for our young learners."

Over the course of the last few months, the cones and learning area was for the most part left untouched. Just after February break, Pacheco came back to her teaching area to find one cone missing.

"My students are creatures of habit and the slight change of our workspace created quite a stir," Pacheco said. "When students had learned that the cone had been taken, they asked what I was going to do about it? The only thing we could think of was to spread the word and see if anyone in the community had seen what may have happened to our cone."

Students created signs to hang around town in hopes someone would come forward and deliver the cone back to Pacheco's class.

"To be clear, I have additional cones," she said. "I have had many awesome individuals come forward and donate cones to replace what was taken. This search for our 36-inch orange cone isn’t about anything more than disappointed and hurt little boys and girls who had their stuff taken."

As promised to her students, Pacheco hung up their posters around town and within the school.

"Now we wait to see if someone does the right thing and returns our cone back to its corner of our field," Pacheco said.

To most, this is just an orange cone, but to Pacheco's students, there's no replacing something as simple as a traffic cone. These kids just want answers, and to be quite honest,  so do I.

If you've seen this cone or have any clues that could help us solve this mystery, please feel free to reach out to me at Gazelle@Fun107.com.