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It's been to Rome, London and Paris.

It's made it to Niagara Falls, a Washington Redskins game and to every state in the country, including Alaska and Hawaii.

Frankly, this 4-foot swath of cherry-red fleece is better traveled than its owner, Eden's business developer Mike Dougherty.

But, until Wednesday night, Dougherty was unaware that for nearly the last two years, his red scarf has been jet-setting, off on a whirlwind tour of the world. In fact, he'd given up hope of ever seeing it again.

Dougherty's wife, Brenda, gave him the scarf in late 2005. It was a month before Christmas, and Dougherty was planning to co-host the Olde Leaksville Nighttime Christmas Parade on WGSR Star News with anchor Mark Childrey.

Dougherty's wife wanted him to look festive for his on-air appearance, so she gave him the red scarf. From a second-floor window, above The Front Porch boutique and wine shop on Washington Street, Dougherty and Childrey commented on the parade entries as they passed.

Sometime during the evening, Dougherty removed the scarf.

He missed it a few days later and asked The Front Porch owners Mel Hall and her mother, Gloria Hall, if they'd spotted it.

They hadn't.

So Dougherty put it out of his mind. And Mel Hall did, too, until a second-floor tenant came across it when moving out of the building in the spring of 2006.

"I thought, let's have some fun with this," Hall recalled. She said Dougherty works hard for the city of Eden and for small businesses, and this was a way to show him that the community values what he does.

She hatched the plan, unbeknownst to Dougherty, to photograph people around town wearing Dougherty's scarf. She started by snapping a photo of her own family on a trip to Washington .

Soon, Eden folks were signing up to take it on their travels. Robert and Peggy Nesbit took it to Hawaii. Lisa and Keith Duncan wore it in New York City, Bill and Susan Pace took it to Pike's Peak in Colorado, and Anne Burke and Greg Giaccio took it to Ireland — just one of eight countries it visited.

The scarf was mailed to folks who used to live in Eden but have moved away: Pat Farrell in New Mexico, Matt Guzzo in Wisconsin. Hall started a photo album, documenting all the people who'd worn the scarf and all the places it had been, planning to give it to Dougherty as a Christmas gift last year.

But, a few weeks before Christmas in 2006, as she was checking the scarf's "social" calendar and realized it had been to all but two of the 50 states. She decided to wait, and let the scarf do a little more globe-trotting.

But, who did she know who was headed to Utah and North Dakota?

Word went out. The scarf needed to head out West. As luck would have it, Rachel Wright's son was headed to Utah on a skiing trip.

When Hall couldn't find an Eden connection to get the scarf to North Dakota, she randomly selected a town — Devil's Lake — and contacted the chamber of commerce there.

"They put it on a huge fish that was caught in their lake," said Hall, and they returned it with a lapel pin from their city.

"It was interesting to find out, by word-of-mouth, who was traveling where," Hall said. And, in the course of its comings and goings, the scarf met some noteworthy people. Wally White, an Eden native who works in the film industry in California, took a photo of Della Reece wearing the scarf.

"She took off fur to put on that scarf," said White's brother, Kennith , who lives in Eden.

"Miss Della never takes off her fur," he added.

Hall's husband, Neville, who knows NASCAR driver Sterling Marlin, asked him to pose with it.

Between trips, when the scarf was in town, it still made the rounds. City Manager Brad Corcoran, Dougherty's boss, wore it. Nigel Buist, an obstetrician in Eden, climbed onto his exam table and posed with the scarf, and Dougherty's pals, Tom Barbour and Lee Noel, took a turn with the fabric.

Sometimes Dougherty was in the same room when the scarf was being passed around, but the secret never got out.

On Wednesday night, after a year and a half on the road, Dougherty's scarf was at last returned to its rightful owner.

Hall presented it to Dougherty at a wine-tasting party that she hosted at her shop. More than 50 people who posed with the scarf showed up to enjoy the surprise.

"I'm so amazed people would go to this trouble," said Dougherty, who was speechless when the scarf was handed to him.

Amanda Currin asked if Dougherty would wear the scarf again, especially after looking through the scrapbook and seeing some of the more questionable places it had been.

Dougherty said he'd probably frame it.

But he won't have to go without. Since the scarf was looking road-weary after its travels, Hall and her mother gave Dougherty a new, red scarf — a cashmere one, with his monogram on it.

Hopefully, if he loses the new scarf, it'll find its way back to him in a more timely manner.

Contact Myla Barnhardt at 627-1781 ext. 116 or mbarnhardt@news-record.com