Hamburg, Iowa -

Alice Hodde’s fourth grade class had a special visitor last week. Owney the traveling mail dog made a stop at Marnie Simons Elementary school, helping the class learn about geography and compound words. They also read aloud, wrote haiku poems, and wrote and drew pictures about Iowa.

While the Owney that visited Hamburg was a stuffed animal, the project is based on the story of a real puppy that was found in Albany, N.Y., in 1888. The puppy was adopted by postal workers, and it lived at the post office. They named him Owney and gave him a mail sack to sleep on. One day, Owney's sack-bed was needed for the mail. Owney followed the scent when the sack was put on a train. Owney got on the train and traveled to the next station where he was found and returned to Albany. He became the mascot of the postal workers and continued to get on trains and traveled all over the U.S.

Today, a class from each state hosts a stuffed dog also name Owney as he travels around the U.S. by mail. Each class writes facts about their state on postcards and mails them to the other classes to let them know Owney arrived.

Students learn about the United States by mailing Owney the Traveling Dog and receiving postcards from other schools. Before coming to Hamburg, Owney was in Ohio, and he will be going to Arkansas.

Only one class in each state is selected to participate, and this is the second time Hamburg has been selected. Students were invited to bring their own stuffed animals from home and ended the day with a party with puppy chow, mini dogs, scooby-do graham cracker dog bones and ice cream floats served.