Beloved teddy bear left at Milwaukee Airport back home where it belongs

The good news is that 5-year-old Ezekiel Burnett of Euless, Texas, is back together with a beloved teddy bear he’s had since he was a baby.

But just as heartwarming is the story behind how “Original Teddy” found his way back into Ezekiel’s arms. The lost and found tale includes a holiday trip to see grandma, kids being kids, a rush to make the flight home, big hearts at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport (MKE) and the internet.

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As Ezekiel’s dad, David, told TPG, after a Thanksgiving holiday visiting relatives in Wisconsin, the family was flying home to Texas out of MKE. “We were in the terminal; our kids were blowing off steam. And we're in the kiddie play area just trying to release some energy and Ezekiel started throwing his teddy bear up in the air.”

Somehow the teddy bear got stuck up in the rafters. “I told Ezekiel I didn’t think we were going to be able to get it down. And as soon as I said that the flight started boarding and we had to leave.”

Burnett said an upset Ezekiel told the gate agents that he lived in Euless, Texas, and asked them to send him the teddy bear if they could get it down. But when he got on the plane, Ezekiel became distraught because he realized the gate agents didn’t have his street address. “That’s when he lost it,” said Burnett. “He cried the entire way home.”

Somehow, the teddy bear stayed stuck in the rafters for several months and was only turned in at MKE’s Airport Information Desk as a found item when it fell out of rafters in early January. That’s when the team at MKE went into action, turning to social media in hopes of finding the lost teddy bear’s owner.

Millions of people saw MKE’s social media posts about the lost bear. And finally, Ezekiel’s mom spotted the bear on a Facebook post a friend had shared. “She couldn’t even speak. Her hands were shaking,” David Burnett told TPG.

The Burnetts contacted MKE and shared photos of Ezekiel and the teddy bear that proved the teddy bear was indeed Ezekiel’s “And, honestly, I just thought they would send the bear back to us in a box via USP or FedEx,” Burnett said.

But instead, MKE and Southwest Airlines flew Ezekiel and his dad to Milwaukee for a reunion held this past Tuesday. And they pulled out all the stops.

There were streamers, balloons, an archway, and swag for Ezekiel that included hats, T-shirts and other fun stuff from the airport and from Southwest Airlines.

One of the gifts MKE gave Ezekiel is a new teddy bear in a pilot’s outfit that he named, appropriately “Pilot Teddy.” That meant the bear Ezekiel had flown in to retrieve needed a name too. Ezekiel now calls his first teddy bear “Original Teddy” and told TPG that the whole adventure made him “super happy and super excited.”

Ezekiel’s dad told TPG he was impressed with the “tremendous hospitality and genuineness” that the airport and Southwest Airlines showered on his son. “It was just a teddy bear. But they made Ezekiel feel important and that really meant a lot to us.”

The reunion also meant a lot to MKE. In addition to the satisfaction of reuniting a boy with his beloved teddy bear, the event helped Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport set records on all its social media channels, including Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok.

“In fact, the MKE Airport TikTok page now has more followers than any airport in the world,” said Harold Mester, MKE’s director of public affairs and marketing. “And this is helping us promote MKE as an easy, travel-friendly airport that genuinely cares about its passengers.”

Fans of MKE already know the airport is travel-friendly. In addition to a post-security “Recombobulation Area,” amenities at MKE include a free aviation museum – the Mitchell Gallery of Flight – a winter coat check service and Renaissance Books, offering a surprisingly wide collection of new, used and rare books.