Every morning at 10:30, Kenon Walker rolls out a red carpet across the hotel lobby in preparation for the first performance of the day. Then he goes to the rooftop to fetch five ducks.
Walker is the duck master of the Peabody Memphis, continuing a decades-old tradition of caring for the resident ducks and leading them on their daily march to and from the lobby fountain. The procession is sometimes watched by hundreds of onlookers gathered around the fountain.
“We’ve got to march with smiles in that lobby,” Walker, 45, tells the ducks each morning in a pep talk. “We’ve got to march with purpose.”
Walker did not plan to become a duck master. Before joining the Peabody in 2018 as a concierge, he worked as a tour guide at the National Civil Rights Museum, and he has a background in theater.
“I was already a public speaker, a historian, an actor and a father,” Walker said. “Those things ended up being preparation.”
He became the assistant duck master in 2019, and in 2020, when the duck master retired, Walker became head of the flock.
“My path led me to doing something that nobody else does,” he said. “There is only one official duck master position in the world.”
The birds are well taken care of and live in a $200,000 penthouse. “Lucky ducks,” Walker says.
The story of the Peabody ducks goes back to 1933, when the general manager, Frank Schutt, and his friend Chip Barwick returned from an unsuccessful hunting trip in Arkansas. The two men drank too much whiskey and decided to put three of their live duck decoys — legal at the time — in the hotel lobby fountain as a prank. Hotel guests were charmed.
“A crowd had gathered, and they loved them, so the ducks stayed and became a fixture in the hotel,” said Kelly Brock, the hotel’s director of marketing and communications.
Five North American mallard ducks replaced the original English call ducks. In 1940, a bellman named Edward Pembroke — who previously worked as a circus animal trainer — offered to help train the ducks to do a “duck march,” waddling to the fountain in the morning and leaving in the evening.
Pembroke became the first “duck master,” a role he held for more than 50 years. In addition to training and feeding the ducks, the duck master also gives a history of the Peabody ducks before each march.
“A lot of people call it a bucket-list item for them to come see the duck march,” Brock said. “We get visitors from as far away as Japan and New Zealand.”
For the past 35 years, the ducks have come from the same local farm. Each team of five ducks stays for three months before “retiring” to live their days in the wild.
The ducks live on the heated rooftop of the hotel, which staff refer to as the “royal duck palace,” complete with a fountain and wooden reproduction of the Peabody Hotel.
Keeping the tradition alive requires a duck master with patience, a love of animals and a flair for performing.
In Walker’s case, he also has a loyal following on social media.
Since taking over, Walker has invited children in the lobby to assist him with rolling out the red carpet and feeding the ducks.
“I wanted to incorporate these things so people felt like they were a part of the ceremony, versus just watching me give a speech,” Walker said.
When he started the job, he told himself: “What you do is what people define the duck master to be. Have fun with it.”
Walker had not previously worked with ducks. He didn’t grow up with pets and doesn’t have any at home. Still, he said, it didn’t take long for him to bond with the ducks.
“I engage with them, I make sure they’re comfortable,” Walker said. “I like to believe that anything with a spirit, you can connect to.”
Walker starts every morning by giving the ducks a quick shower and a few words of encouragement.
“I believe in the power of positive speaking,” Walker said. “Half the time when I’m giving them a pep talk, I’m setting myself up for the day as well.”
Then the ducks get a breakfast of romaine lettuce. They also eat a mix of grains, as well as cracked corn, and dried worms as a treat.
Walker sets up for the first duck march by rolling out the carpet and delivering a brief speech. Just before 11 a.m., he marches the ducks across the rooftop, into the elevator (one is reserved for the ducks) and down to the lobby as John Philip Sousa’s “King Cotton March” plays.
The ducks stay in the fountain while Walker gives a morning hotel history tour, which includes a viewing of the duck palace. He then feeds the ducks, responds to fan mail and tidies the duck palace. Once the ducks do their exit march at 5 p.m., he returns them to the rooftop.
“After they get used to the process, if I’m not right behind them, they’ll stop and wait on me,” Walker said.
Each “team” of ducks — always one male and four females — takes time to adjust to the routine. When a new team arrives, there’s a two-week overlap for the “veteran team” to train the new ducks.
“Part of me thinks the veteran ducks talk to them and tell them they’ll love it here,” Walker said.
Training mostly involves walking back and forth across the rooftop, and within about a week, they get the hang of it.
“These ducks are excited to see me,” he said.
The ducks never practice in the lobby until their first official march. Things don’t always go as planned.
“I’ve had to chase ducks into the bathroom; I’ve had to chase ducks into the gift shop. I get a lot of cardio when I’m working with the new ducks,” Walker said.
“Some teams are better than others,” he said. “Some take to the training instantly; some are rebellious and aren’t really feeling it.”
Walker used to name the ducks individually but stopped to avoid getting attached. Now he names every male duck Quinn — after a young St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital patient who regularly visited the ducks. He names three of the female ducks after his aunts who have died and the fourth after his daughter, Kennedy, 15.
Walker said he keeps Edward Pembroke, the original duck master, in mind during his day. Pembroke, a Black man, held the job at a time when many hotels in the South were segregated and Black employees were limited to working behind-the-scenes jobs.
“Their value was less than the ducks,” said Walker, who is the hotel’s second Black duck master. “I have that kindred connection to Mr. Pembroke, having never met him.”
“Kids from all walks of life see hope in a face that looks like mine,” he added, explaining that is part of what makes the daily marches meaningful.
“To know that those moments have impacted people, that they’ve sent me letters, made posts about me, and bring their families back year after year,” he said.
He plans to keep leading the ducks for as long as he can.
“We could all use some joy and some hope,” Walker said. “And I try to represent that.”
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