Solving the mystery of the fallen Hugo the Hornet
Plus: The top news of the week
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Traffic cameras show fragments of two 19-foot-tall Charlotte Hornets mascots. What’s up with that?
by Jeremy Markovich
North Carolina Rabbit Hole
I have seen a lot of dead bugs in my life.
These are different:
Your eyes are not deceiving you. That is a very large Hugo the Hornet just lying there on its side, missing its cartoonishly gloved right hand. It appears to be near a highway of some sort. And there’s more than one. There’s a blue leg sitting in front of a dumpster. Which, if you are a young, impressionable Charlotte Hornets fan, is the stuff of nightmares.
I saw that tweet and thought it might something to write about. I’ve solved other Hugo-related mysteries in the past. How hard could this one be?
I got in touch with the guy who posted the pics — a guy who does traffic reports for radio stations who goes by @clt_TrafficGuy on Twitter. Turns out, the picture was from one of many traffic cameras that are set up along highways. Here’s a wider view from one of them, which clearly shows the Albemarle Road interchange at Independence Boulevard:
You can also see the second Hugo, along with a dumpster and a lot of junk nearby.
After that, I got in touch with a former Hornets employee, who didn’t remember the big hornets being displayed anywhere inside the arena over the last two years, and thought it might have been some stuff from a warehouse that got thrown out. He encouraged me to talk to Evan Kent.
Evan and I go back. Some 12 years ago, I talked to him when I was working on a Charlotte magazine story about a grassroots effort to change the name of the Charlotte Bobcats to the Hornets. When I started reporting it out, it was a whimsical story. By the end, it was a real possibility, and a few years later it became a reality, thanks to the relentless pushing of Evan and a bunch of others. He literally brought back the buzz.
Anyway, if anyone would know, it would be Evan, who morphed all of that energy into The Crown Club, the Hornets’ fan group. “Pretty sure it’s just some leftover pieces from a billboard,” he messaged me. “I think Novant Health.”
He was right. A little internet sleuthing turned up a photo gallery of a large 3D Hugo going up on a Novant Health billboard just off I-277 near the AvidXchange Music Factory. There’s also a video.
Hugo is 19 feet tall! THAT’S A BIG OL’ BUG.
The video’s from November 2014, but the actual Hugo was hoisted into place on Oct. 16, according to WSOC-TV, which flew a helicopter over it. Another hornet went up on a second Novant billboard along I-277. This all happened just a few months after the official name change was announced with a video of Hugo waving a Buzz City flag on top of the arena.
It’s hard to tell exactly where that second billboard was, because neither one shows up on Google Street view. The imagery from that area was taken in May 2014, and again in July 2015, and there’s no Hugo to be found.
So I went to the Mecklenburg County Time Machine, which has aerial imagery of the Charlotte area going back to 1938. A satellite shot from March 29, 2015, shows the top of Hugo’s head in front of the billboard, but it’s gone a few months later. The 19-foot Hugos didn’t even last a full year in their respective perches.
So, where did they go? And where have they been all this time?
Well, um, they’ve been in the same place. Behind a wall off of Independence Boulevard near Albemarle Road.
The same satellite imagery website that showed Hugo along I-277 on March 29, 2015, also showed the two bugs sitting in a small junkyard that October:
It’s the same junkyard where they are today.
So if these things have been there for about nine years, how come nobody noticed them until now?
Well, some people noticed. “There’s another Hugo laying around at another dump that people have been taking pictures of for years and sending to us,” Evan Kent messaged me. “A tradition now I think.”
My educated guess: It’s the same Hugos in the same dump, but just seen from ground level. This piece of property belongs to Adams Outdoor, which owns a bunch of billboards around Charlotte.
It used to be home to some commercial buildings that were demolished around 20 years ago when Independence was upgraded to an expressway. For at least 10 years now, it’s been a graveyard for old marketing campaigns, and you can see other chunks of billboards strewn around. At least from the aerial images, anyway.
What’s there is up on a hill above Pierson Drive and hard to see from the street. From time to time, though, someone would go up to the chain-link gate, snap a pic of a large dead Hugo and send it to Evan.
So if that’s the case, then why are we talking about it now? Because the traffic camera that shows it is fairly new. “I just started looking around yesterday,” Clt_TrafficGuy told me. “I saw some junk down there but never bothered to check into it.”
So in summary:
An ad agency commissioned two 19-foot-tall Hugo the Hornets to go on billboards near uptown Charlotte a decade ago.
Those bugs were in place for less than a year before being taken down and unceremoniously dumped in a billboard junkyard on the east side of town.
They then sat there for nine years before anyone other than curious urban explorers noticed them.
One part of me thinks this is somewhat existential: We, like Hugo, will all at some point have been dead longer than we were alive. Another part just keeps repeating the old NBC slogan: “If you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you!”
I’ve reached out to the ad agency and to Adams because I still have some questions here. Namely: Why are those things still just sitting there, rotting away? Why not auction them off like, say, a giant foam Sphinx or, maybe, a pair of fiberglass Chick-fil-A cows that are currently selling on eBay for $2,700? Isn’t there anything else that could be done with them?
Evan Kent thinks so.
“Crown Club would love it for our tailgate spot! We’ll put him right out front on 5th Street,” he said, before adding: “Not even joking lol.”
I know, Evan. I know.
Writer Jeremy Markovich has been a journalist in North Carolina for nearly 20 years. His work has appeared in magazines and online publications including Charlotte magazine, Our State, SB Nation, Politico and CBS Sports.
A version of this article was published earlier this week in his newsletter, North Carolina Rabbit Hole, which examines strange stories from this state’s past and present. You should consider signing up for it because it is a great read: Recent articles include an examination of Cook Out’s secrecy, an interview with North Carolina’s world champion cheese wheel chaser and the explanation of why I-85’s lanes cross each other for three miles near Lexington.
Today’s supporting sponsor is VIA Health Partners. Through Journeys, our personalized approach to serious illness care, we provide ongoing symptom relief, quality of life enhancement, and 24/7 access to a dedicated team of healthcare professionals wherever you call home. Your journey. Your care. Our priority. Journeys from VIA Health Partners.
This week in Charlotte: New high school, magnet changes for CMS; RFK Jr. and Cornell West secure spots on NC ballot; Atrium settles lawsuit with Cannon family
On Saturdays, The Ledger sifts through the local news of the week and links to the top articles — even if they appeared somewhere else. We’ll help you get caught up. That’s what Saturdays are for.
Education
Inside the new Ballantyne high school: (Ledger 🔒) At four floors, Ballantyne Ridge High, which opens to students Aug. 26, is the tallest school in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools district. Its design features are geared toward the teens of today and school district needs. It’s one of four new CMS schools opening this month.
CMS magnet changes: (WFAE) Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools plans to add about 800 seats to magnet programs and make changes to neighborhood schools that would affect about 800 students. There are virtual information sessions about the changes on Monday, Aug. 19.
Politics
RFK Jr., West on NC ballot: (WRAL) Judges ordered in separate rulings that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornell West will both appear on North Carolina ballots this year, overturning efforts to keep Kennedy’s We The People Party and West’s Justice for All Party off the ballot. [edited 8/17/24 to correct abbreviation of RFK Jr.]
Plan for buses to Matthews: (Transit Time) Charlotte officials have agreed to spend more on roads and less on rail transit in their multi-billion-dollar transportation plan. However, this has raised questions about whether Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), which involves special lanes for buses, is feasible along the U.S. 74 corridor.
Local news
Airport workers protest: (WBTV) Workers at Charlotte Douglas International Airport held a rally Tuesday, protesting against American Airlines, their employer ABM, and what they called a “lack of basic protections.” The workers demanded access to water, cool break rooms and training on heat illness during hot summer travel sessions.
Religious discrimination suit settled: (Observer) A Charlotte IHOP franchise agreed to pay $40,000 to settle a lawsuit by a chef who said he was fired after the company refused to honor his request not to work on Sundays because of his Christian religious beliefs.
Business
Atrium-Cannon settlement: (Observer) The legal battle over a $17M trust between the descendants of the Cannon Mills family and Atrium Health has been resolved, with the money going to a different entity associated with Atrium.
Changes in home sales: (Ledger 🔒) The Charlotte region is set to see changes in the way Realtors are compensated, following a national legal settlement.
Sports
BofA to sponsor World Cup: (Sports Business Journal via Charlotte Business Journal, subscriber-only) Charlotte-based Bank of America has signed on as a “global sponsor” of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, a sponsorship level believed to cost around $100M. It’s the bank’s largest sports marketing investment.
Hornets’ schedule released: (NBA.com) The Charlotte Hornets announced their 2024-25 schedule. They open at Houston on Oct. 23 and have their home opener against Miami on Oct. 26. Tickets go on sale Saturday at 10 a.m.
From the Ledger family of newsletters
Athletic facility under scrutiny: The Charlotte-based U.S. Performance Center, which received tens of millions of dollars in state money to help attract Olympic athletes and sports governing bodies to the Charlotte region, is coming under scrutiny for its spending.
Plus: Frontier Airlines’ CEO says expansion at CLT going well; car fire in airport lot injures three people; Matthews is a holdout on a proposal for a regional transit plan; Lawrence Toppman reviews Three Bone Theatre’s “Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles”
Wednesday (🔒)
The value of Ballantyne: In an interview with The Ledger, Northwood Office President John Barton reflected on the vision and execution of the Ballantyne Reimagined project, the future of real estate development in Charlotte and the excitement over the announcement of Wegmans coming to Ballantyne.
Plus: New Commercial Real Estate “Whispers” about a hot parcel in South End, stagnant job growth and July’s big construction permits; Atrium revenue soars; WSJ article on overworked BofA bankers; new sign uptown shows theater's progress; a bonus podcast episode with John Barton
Friday (🔒)
Realtors adjust to new rules for buying and selling houses; home sales rise for first time in 2+ years; why a “Cuban dinner” money transfer gets flagged by the bank; Cam Newton remembers Price’s Chicken Coop
Analyzing the transfer window: Soccer writer Carroll Walton sizes up Charlotte FC roster moves associated with this summer’s transfer window.
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Hugo to Hugo, dust to dust.