Duckmaster™ Jason Sensat is solely responsible for the care and well being of Peabody hotel’s web-footed ambassadors for wildfowl conservation and preservation, The marching Peabody ducks. Feeding, exercising, and training the teams for their twice-daily marches at The Peabody hotel, in Memphis is a proud decades old tradition.
The lobby fountain of the Peabody hotel, in Memphis, has been home to ducks since 1933, but when the hotel hired former circus animal trainer, Edward Pembroke as a bellman in 1940, a team of feathered stars were born.
Pembroke offered to help with delivering the ducks to the fountain each day and conceived the now-famous Peabody Duck March.
Since then at 11 a.m. each morning, the Peabody Ducks march to John Philip Sousa’s “King Cotton March” along a red carpet from their rooftop Royal Duck Palace the famous travertine marble fountain in the Grand Lobby. They splash and preen in the lobby until 5 p.m., when the procession reverses and the ducks retire for the evening.
Mr. Pembroke served as Peabody Duckmaster™ for 50 years until retiring in 1991. The late Mr. Pembroke’s portrait hangs in the en-trance to The Peabody, a luxury suite is named for him, and a building in Peabody Place development is named Pembroke Square
Today, Sensat performs the important duckmaster™ duties, as well as several other ones. When not tending to the five North American mallards, Sensat acts as a public ambassador for the hotel, greeting guests in the Grand Lobby, conducting tours, and making media and community appearances.
These days the famous marching ducks are the mascots for the Federal Duck Stamp Program, which benefits conservation. The winning stamp and 25 semi-final stamps will be displayed throughout the weekend during Cape May County’s 26th Annual Wings ‘N Water Festival, and the ducks will usher in a weekend of fun by marching into local schools on Friday, Sept. 19.
Elementary school children from kindergarten through eighth grade will greet the four hens and one green-headed, white-collared drake, and learn about the North American Mallard family from Duckmaster Sensat.
Sensat doesn’t have a circus background, but while being raised in a military family, he did travel the world. He’s called Texas, Florida, Maine, Pennsylvania, Spain, and the Azores islands home.
He was recruited as Duckmaster™ from within the hotel, having worked in the Human Resources Department since 2003. In addition to his duck duties at The Peabody, Sensat is a part-time minister at Faith Assembly of God Church in Millington, Tennessee. He lives in Arlington, Tennessee, with his wife of eight years, Patricia, and their two children, Shelby Lynne, age 5, and Jason Carter, age 2.
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