Meet Thurston County’s cutest cat: Darren, a cuddly 1-year-old ragdoll from Lacey

After narrowing down the list to the top 50 cat submissions, we asked our readers for their help in finding the cutest cat in Thurston County. After thousands of votes, we’ve crowned a winner.

Darren, a 1-year-old ragdoll from Lacey, received a total of 2,845 votes in the only round of the cutest cat competition, making him the cutest feline in Thurston County.

Yuki, a 3-year-old Siamese ragdoll mix, was a close runner-up in the competition with a total of 2,742 votes.

Meet Darren, Thurston County’s cutest cat

Darren, an 11-pound blue-eyed ragdoll cat, came into his owner’s life in August of 2023 after “a year of loss,” Katie Rice said.

Rice moved back to Lacey to live with her family in 2023 while her father was receiving chemotherapy. Her family tragically lost her father after she moved back and also lost one of their two family cats.

Rice was very close with the cat that passed away and said that after so much loss, all she wanted was to have a cat that was affectionate and cuddly.

After doing some research, Rice found that ragdoll cats, unlike other breeds, are known to be very affectionate. She had never only ever adopted cats, but since she was looking for a specific breed, she decided to search online to see if anyone was selling ragdoll kittens. That’s where she came across Darren.

“I searched Craigslist one night, and I saw his picture, and I emailed the lady, and she responded right away. I had him less than a month later.” Rice said. “And for me, my mom and my sister, he has brought so much joy and life back into our house, a lot of chaos too.”

Rice named her cat Darren after the husband from the sitcom “Bewitched,” and said that she and everyone who meets Darren believe he lives up to the name since he shares similar personality traits as the character.

“I feel like the show is really cute because it’s about a witch and her husband, and he’s very there for her,” Rice said. “[Darren has] really been there for me and then I just think Darren such a classy and a gentleman type name, and he has just has an air about him, like kind of put together, and he just kind of commands attention in the room.”

Darren is smart, affectionate and in tune with Rice, but he also has a mischievous side to him that tends to get him into some trouble. Rice explained that Darren enjoys bothering their 14-year-old cat Kobe, who seemingly wants nothing to do with him most of the time. He also doesn’t have the best survival instincts, but that doesn’t stop him from climbing on the blinds, fridge and bookcase.

All-in-all, Darren is perfect and is exactly the kind of cat that Rice was searching for and “floored” to see that thousands of community members voted for him in the cutest cat competition.

This story was originally published October 26, 2024 at 5:00 AM.

Rosemary Montalvo

The News Tribune

Rosemary Montalvo was previously a service journalism reporter based in Tacoma, WA. She started as a summer news intern after graduating from California State University, Fullerton in May 2023. She has also worked as the photo editor and reporter for her university’s student-run newspaper. She was born in Inglewood, California.