Photo by James Glover II

Ana Diaz, 9, of Ventura looks over some of the postcards sent by Donald Turnbull and other Federal Aviation Administration employees.

Courtesy photo

One of the teddy bears is shown in front of Leeds Castle in England.

Photo by James Glover II

Donald Turnbull visits with students at Citrus Glen Elementary School. Turnbull and other FAA employees began sending postcards from wherever the teddy bears visited.

Courtesy photo

This snapshot shows one of the teddy bears on a visit to Grenada. Other visits were marked with postcards.

"Bonjour, mon amis!" the postcard read. "Brussels, the Grand Platz, is very pretty and very, very old. Some of the buildings date back a thousand years. Food is really good. Gained 10 pounds in four days. Hope to see you soon. Getting homesick. Yellow Bear."

It was one of hundreds of postcards the students in Kate Palkie's first-grade classes have received over the past nine years at Ventura's Citrus Glen Elementary School.

The kids got the missives from a variety of bears who traveled all over the world with globe-trotting strangers.

"I called them geo-bears,'" Palkie said. "I used to take them to local hotels and pass them out. I would ask local travelers to pass them on to another traveler."

One traveler with an advanced case of wanderlust helped make the project a big success.

Federal Aviation Administration executive Donald Turnbull of Washington, D.C., picked up a bear in 1999 and took it to his office. Over the years, he and his staff have squired the bears all over the world.

After traveling to Ventura recently to meet the first-graders, Turnbull is now retiring from the teddy bear project, leaving Palkie in search of other travelers who don't mind a teddy bear or two in tow.

"I'd like any group of people who are willing to take a bear with them and write postcards from the perspective of the bear," Palkie said. "In the first grade, the children really believe the bear is doing things."

There have been other traveling bear benefactors, but the majority of the pictures and postcards that the first-graders have received have been compliments of Turnbull and his staff, who travel a lot for business.

Turnbull and his wife, Bobby, enjoy traveling during their free time, too, so the bears have been on both business and pleasure trips to spots like Hawaii, England, Canada and China as well as all over the United States.

Bears with names like Caramel Bear, George, Gracie, Sam and Shirley also have enjoyed their share of cruises, as evidenced by snapshots of bears lounging on deck chairs or perched on the side rail of a luxury liner.

"It's such a real link to geography for the kids," Palkie said.

Turnbull, a radar and development engineer for the FAA, first picked up a bear while on a business trip in Oklahoma City. "I travel there fairly often, and at the hotel, sitting on the front desk, was a teddy bear," said Turnbull, now 62. "I read the little note and took it back to Washington, D.C."

He propped the teddy bear up in front of the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum, took a photo and sent it to Palkie's class.

"Rather than sending it back right away, a number of people in my group were going out on trips, so we wound up keeping it all year, then sent it back," Turnbull said.

Turnbull and his staff kept getting other bears each year and taking them on adventures. Every time Palkie's class received a postcard or photo, Palkie would put a pin on a map of the world to correspond with the bear's latest stop.

'And, sometimes, a bear!'

A recent vacation took the Turnbulls to Southern California, so the couple arranged to visit Citrus Glen on May 28, just before school ended for the year.

"I hadn't been in the L.A. area in awhile, so my wife and I decided to return the bears in person," Turnbull said.

Palkie's students put on a special 30-minute play in honor of the Turnbulls. Then, there was a question-and-answer session for the kids that had a sea of hands waving in the air.

"What's your favorite place you've ever been," one child asked.

"My favorite place is Yellowstone National Park," Donald said. "I like to see the bison and the wolves and, sometimes, a bear!"

The kids gasped and murmured.

"How many places have you been?" asked the young owner of another waving hand.

"I've been to every state and every province in Canada except one," he said.

After the presentation, the kids got a chance to examine all of the photos and postcards that the bears had sent through the years.

The correspondence was pinned to green ribbons suspended from the auditorium ceiling.

Asked where he would like to visit someday, 7-year-old Dominic Quintana said: "China. To see the people who make stuff like toys."

'The whole wide world'

Alexandria Kwasny, 6, said she'd like to see England because "that's where my grandmother is from, and I like to see different kinds of trees."

On the wall in back of the dangling postcards that took the youngsters around the world was a banner that read: "Welcome Mr. and Mrs. Turnbull. Thanks for sharing the whole wide world."