Unofficial Star mascot passes away
Marble – A coyote took Peanut on Jan. 11, and shopkeepers throughout Graham County are heartbroken — but not as much as Neal Wachob.
Wachob delivers The Graham Star each week and has done so since 2016, starting the day in Franklin where he picks up his bundles from the pressroom, dropping off stacks at 32 stops, until he finishes with paperwork at The Graham Star office on Tallulah Road.
An 11-year-old mixed breed of miniature Doberman and deer head Chihuahua, Peanut was his constant companion.
“People really liked seeing my little Peanut,” Wachob said, choking back tears.
He is right. He has a collection of photos of Peanut in the loving arms of Graham County shopkeepers and store clerks.
“We spoiled that dog,” said one store clerk who declined to provide her name.
Peanut would jump up and down in Wachob’s Honda Element as he gathered his stack of papers at each stop. Carrying his stack of papers with his left arm and Peanut sitting on the pile, Wachob entered each store and Peanut would jump into the arms of any adoring fan who allowed it.
“When it was time for him to leave, that dog would actually hug me,” the store clerk said.
It was Jan. 11, precisely 1:15 a.m., when Wachob and his other two dogs, Puppy and Tater, heard it happen.
His home near Marble sits on 1.3 acres, in a bowl surrounded on all sides by woods. Like many places, coyotes have moved in and taken over.
“He was just gone,” Wachob said.
Wachob blames himself, but rewind to a year earlier, Wachob endured a wicked bout of COVID-19 that nearly killed him, with fever of 105 degrees at some points.
“My memory will fail me,” he said. “I had to have let him out and didn’t remember.”
“I hate coyotes; they take everything,” he said.
The loss of his constant companion – and the circumstances of Peanut’s death – fills Wachob with remorse.
“You deserve much better,” he said. “I was supposed to take care of you.
“The dogs, they miss him. Puppy knew he was gone and wouldn’t leave my arms. She knew he was gone.”