Until recently, Archie the Peacock has been a neighborhood pet for Keene. Now, it seems the bird has disappeared.
There are several theories as to where Archie has gone. This isn’t the first time he has disappeared. Some people hold on to the hope that he will still come back. 
“I wasn’t too concerned. I figured Archie would come back after a while,” Keene resident Jean Fitch said. “I don’t know how long he’s been missing but it seems like I saw him recently. I hope he shows up again but who knows.”
One theory about Archie’s disappearance is that his owners moved. A woman who lived on the corner of Woodlawn and Greenbrier might or might not have had a degree of ownership, according to Cristina Thomsen, Keene resident. People say he disappeared around the same time this woman moved.
Another more sad theory is that a car hit Archie. Linc Liberto, Keene resident, said he saw a group of cows chasing a peacock not far from Keene. The bird ran under a fence to escape just as a vehicle came by. Liberto saw feathers fly, but there’s no guarantee that the bird died, or that the bird was even Archie.
Edna Yanez-Perez, another Keene resident, doesn’t figure the bird would have just left. With him in the neighborhood for so long, there’s no reason he would suddenly just walk away.
“The woman next door tried to capture the bird before, but you can’t capture a
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peacock,” said Jack Hardwick, Keene resident. “He escaped and stayed in the neighborhood. Now he recently disappeared. I haven’t seen or heard the woman who originally tried to capture him. She moved and said, “It’s my peacock and I’m taking it with me.” It made me mad because she claimed it as hers when really it was the neighborhoods.”
“I happen to think it’s a real loss for the neighborhood,” said Thomsen. “I certainly hope that if he was transported and survived that he’s someplace where he’s happy. I hope that he’s making people happy wherever he is, like he did here. There are many people for whom he brought a lot of joy.”
“Now that he’s gone it’s almost like the neighborhood isn’t as bright. It’s a lot quieter, it just seems like that tie to the neighborhood is gone, it’s sad.”
Archie had been a long time resident of Keene. According to Thomsen peacocks can live almost 30 years. This makes it no surprise the bird has been around for so long. He will be greatly missed in the neighborhood.
Local residents Bob and Bev Mendenhall say the bird had been in the area about fifteen years. He would travel from block to block, spending months on end in a specific street or area. Archie’s most recent roost was at Don and Marie Redwine’s rooftop. Many town members, such as Loy and Jean Fitch, treasure fond memories of having the bird come to visit.
“The first time we saw the bird it was tethered to the corner of property on Greenbrier,” Jean Fitch said. “Then he started to appear at different places in the area. We saw him in people’s yards when we would take our walks down Fourth Street. 
“One day Archie was sitting on our mailbox out front. Many times he would appear right at our door, looking for food to eat. I would put out food for him in the yard and the neighbors would watch him. We’ve had company down here from Tennessee and they were amazed how the bird was just walking around the neighborhood.”
Archie was certainly never underfed. He knew the houses that would feed him and would make regular visits to these houses, according to Thomsen. One such house was that of Jerry Potter.
“Archie would come by early evening and I would feed him peanuts,” Potter said. “I would see him walking down the street and I would shake the plastic container and call him by name. He would run like a dog, coming a couple of hundred feet on the dead run sometimes. Then when he would come up the driveway right up to me. The bird would “rattle” his tail into full bloom, shake it at me and do his mock charge to get me to back away. I would and he would drop his feathers and eat like there was no tomorrow. He could also be found drinking from the dog’s dish on the front lawn. How I’m going to miss his mournful calls in the evening.”
Thomson, along with several other Keene residents, has dubbed Archie as Keene’s biggest optimist. Each year when spring came, Archie’s tale feathers would come into full bloom. “He climbs onto rooftops and just shrieks and hollers,” Thomson said. “He’s calling for a peahen to come and find him.
“At first when you hear it, it’s like ‘someone take that peacock away,’” said Thomson. “But it’s a part of us now. Every year he would do this.  He was so convinced that each new spring would be the year that a peahen would come. So I would say he’s Keene’s biggest optimist because year after year he would never give up.”