Decade later, deceased Wenatchee cat continues to get junk mail

WENATCHEE — Theo Theokitos lives on.

At least in the eyes of marketers for many financial institutions, magazines and insurance companies that keep sending the cat mail 10 years after his death.

Theo made news 15 years ago as the junk-mail cat of Wenatchee.

Mail and free magazines started coming to the Krikris house on Orchard Avenue after Helene Krikris submitted a coupon for a rebate on cat food in October 1992. She submitted the rebate using Theo's name.

Theo died in 1999, but the junk mail continues to arrive through the mail slot, although in lesser volume. "It seems a week doesn't go by when I don't get something," Krikris says.

The original Wenatchee World story about Theo's mail problem was sent out over The Associated Press wire and ran in newspapers around the world. Seattle's Evening Magazine TV show came to Wenatchee and interviewed Krikris, her husband Chris, and Theo.

Theo hasn't been a finalist for a $10 million dollar sweepstakes in a while, but Forbes, Barrows and Tycoon magazines still hound his memory. Helene Krikris says she contacted The Wall Street Journal to get Theo's name off their books, but he continues to get offers for discounted subscriptions.

She believes it is Theo's last name that has companies interested in contacting her passed-on feline. She says Theokitos sounds like a wealthy Greek shipping magnate.

Theo was actually named after a Greek monk the Krikrises met while visiting her husband's homeland in 1982.

Whatever the reason, the Krikrises throw most of Theo's mail away with the other junk mail.

And they have pretty much given up hope that Theo will win that $10 million dollar sweepstakes.