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The Squirrel Whisperer
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They call him the Squirrel Man.
Of the stories and myths circulating Boise State University, one of the most humorous is of communication professor Marty Most and his squirrels.
Maybe you’ve heard an exaggerated version of the story from a former student of Most’s along the lines of, “Yeah man, he keeps squirrels up there as pets,” or, “He keeps his window open so they can come inside.”
The real story began years ago, when Most had an office downstairs in the Communication Building.
One day he noticed there were about a dozen of the little critters hanging around the building and left some bread for them to snack on. As time passed, Most started leaving nuts outside his office, which brought numerous and frequent visitors.
When Most moved his office upstairs, he never expected the squirrels to follow him. In fact, he didn’t even put peanuts out on his windowsill. But soon enough, he discovered squirrels climbing the tree outside his window to pay a visit.
“It wasn’t long before they discovered they could come up here and get peanuts,” Most said. “It’s what they do.”
Now squirrels go as far as climbing the side of the building to grab a snack.
Most goes through a five pound bag of peanuts every two or three weeks and between students and other faculty members, the squirrels seem to get plenty to eat.
“They have a pretty good life here,” Most said.
While Most doesn’t get too attached to his squirrel friends, a few have certainly left their mark.
One in particular, whom students named “Scruffy,” (apparently for good reason) stood out. Scruffy, as Most recalled, was a very old and miserable looking squirrel, but was one of the tamest squirrels he ever saw. One afternoon a student told Most there was a squirrel outside that didn’t look so good. When he went out to check, Most found Scruffy in pretty bad shape. Most boxed up the ailing squirrel and took it to the humane society, where they told him he was one of the oldest squirrels they had ever seen.
“I like them because they’re part of the charm of a university campus,” Most said of his furry friends. “That park-like setting; being here where we are along the river, situated by parks and that sort of thing. I think it really is a nice part of that pleasant, natural setting.”
As for the rumors of leaving his window open for visitors, Most said he didn’t actually invite them in.
However, one Friday when he left for the weekend, Most accidentally left his window open, only to return to an empty five-pound bag of peanuts and a mess of shells in his office that took hours to clean up.
“They got the entire thing, they got every peanut and it looked like they probably ate maybe a third of them in my office,” Most said.
Even after the incident of the break-in, Most continued to feed the squirrels. Another communications professor, Laurell Traynowicz, started feeding them as well and has even developed a squirrel nest outside her window.
While the Boise State squirrels may not be as legendary or as big a part of our heritage as the football team, they hold an important part of the character and charm of our campus.
They are here to stay, and it’s our job to tell the story, to continue a tradition of sorts, or maybe just keep a lighthearted myth surrounding the Communication Building alive.
JUSTIN NEWELL
Culture Writer
