Local man who builds cat shelters out of campaign signs to appear on national television
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POCATELLO — A celebrity singer and television personality has interviewed a local man.
Kelly Boodry, a retired engineer from Pocatello, was interviewed over a video chat by Kelly Clarkson for the 100th episode of The Kelly Clarkson Show, which will air Thursday at 4 p.m. on CBS or streaming on Peacock. Clarkson interviewed Boodry about his efforts to provide shelters for stray and feral cats by building the shelters out of political campaign signs.
Boodry said these campaign signs are difficult to recycle due to the material they’re made out of.
“I’m hoping that people recognize this and they save those signs or give those signs to shelters and the shelters using them,” Boodry said.
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Boodry said he doesn’t know what aspects of his interview will actually appear on the show, but he wanted more people to know that with spring approaching, the cat’s “breeding season” was approaching.
“It’s that time of year where the weather gets warmer. The cats tend to breed at that time, and if they’re not neutered … and they have litters of kittens, and then the rescues and shelters just get inundated with all these kittens,” Boodry said.
Not only is this bad for shelters, but also stray and feral cats.
“Just like when any population goes up, there’s less resources for the feral cats. They have less food out there, less places to stay. Plus another thing is, if they have any kind of diseases, that propagates,” Boodry said.
Boodry encouraged people to spay and neuter their cats to ease the burden on local shelters.
He also said that with the weather getting warmer and campaign season approaching, this is the time when he would be stocking up on supplies so that he could put more shelters out before the weather gets cold again.
Boodry found speaking with Clarkson to be a comfortable experience.
“It was really like talking to a regular person,” Boodry said.
He said Clarkson asked him about how he got the idea to build the cat shelters out of political signs.
“Because it wasn’t my idea, it was somebody else’s idea that basically was a challenge to me,” Boodry said.
A friend of Boodry who was involved in animal advocacy and politics told about how they had a lot of leftover signs and asked him to figure out what they could do with them.
“It takes collaboration for people to come up with ideas and get stuff to work,” Boodry said.
Boodry is working on putting together information about how to build the cat shelters to distribute freely on the internet. He’s already gotten interest from some people in Salt Lake City, and he hopes more people will take up the task.
To donate signs to Boodry and contact him, you can reach him at by text at (208) 881-6754. He said people are also welcome to donate to the Bingham County Humane Society.