User:Swezlex/sandbox

Queenie 1952-2011 was born in Thailand and imported to the U.S. as a baby.

In the Autumn of 1954 nine-year-old Liz Dane asked her father to buy her a pet. Instead of a puppy or kitten she ended up with a 250-pound elephant which they crammed into the back of the family car - a 1953 Mercury with the back seat removed — and took home to New Hampshire.

Queenie performed at state and county fairs, Republican rallies, military bases and circuses around the country.

A Florida couple, Marj and Jim Rusing taught Queenie to water ski during the 1950s and 1960s. The Rusings had trained other elephants to ski, but Queenie at the time was the world's only water-skiing elephant. According to Liz Dane, Queenie liked water skiing. 'She would put her trunk in the water and get a big scoop of water and spray it all over the place! She loved it.'

Queenie went to Wild Adventures in Valdosta, Georgia in 2003 to live out her retirement. When she died in 2011, Queenie was believed to be one of the oldest Asian elephants in North America.