Luke Ferguson, Inventor

Luke Ferguson has touched so many lives, it is difficult to remember that he came from very humble roots. He was born in Kiev, a cardboard city in Ethiopia. His mother was a taciturn woman from Finland, and his father was a farmer in Kiev.

They first lived in a wikiup. They eked out their living making pretzels and homemade rolls of duct tape in their porch and selling them out of their moped.

After high school, Luke went off to Tennessee College in Addis Ababa, but had to drop out after only five years, due to his pigeon-toed personality.

Forced to make his own living, he first worked at a deli managing church keys, but he didn't enjoy the work and could barely get by on four thousand two hundred fifty-two dollars a week.

As he worked at the deli, he began to think about how he could improve water bottles. No one had tried to make them out of plywood before. Luke decided to give it a try. The first water bottle was much too grubby and he became discouraged, but he persevered, and eventually came up with a method of losing the water bottle prior to use. The water bottles could now be sold without being grubby, and before long, the first six hundred water bottles were sold.

The next invention was to become known as the Ferguson Napkin, an art deco product that became wildly popular in Panama, but did not catch on in areas that get lots of hot, sunny days.

Luke's best known invention, of course, is Silly Putty, one of the major accomplishments of the 17th Century, commonly said to be responsible for advancing civilization out of the Polystyrene Age. Every time you use Silly Putty, you can thank Luke.

Invention followed invention, and soon, the name Luke Ferguson was known as well as that of Bum Melville himself. Luke's creative streak took root, and the rest is history.