News from Mesa County Spellbinders

I grew up in Pennsylvania in "Pennsylvania Dutch" country. I have to share that my first grade teacher was a genius! Her comments on my report card that year were:

1st Quarter: Karen is energetic and loves to participate in classroom activities.
2nd Quarter: Karen seems to love school and taking part in classroom discussions, however, she needs to learn to talk at appropriate times.
3rd Quarter: I am wondering if Karen wants to move on to 2nd grade as she cannot seem to curtail her talking and listen more.

Well, I did make it to 2nd grade because my teacher came up with a plan. I was assigned to give puppet shows weekly to the Kindergarten classes! I'm thinking our deal was that if I listened in class and talked less I could then talk all I wanted during the puppet shows; in which I played ALL the characters! I was in heaven and my guess is so was my teacher.

Many years later, after graduating with a BA in Psychology I began a long career working with disabled children and adults; primarily Autistic children and adults. During those years I acquired training in Behavioral Analysis and even completed half of an MSW program. It was challenging work, but very rewarding. During that time my husband and I moved to California where he worked for NASA and we spent over 20 years there before moving to GJ.

My hobbies/interests include reading, sewing, scrapbooking, writing, and computer technology. I've also served as a Stephen's Minister for my church in California and here in GJ for about 7 years.

This will be my third year as a Spellbinder and I enjoy every minute of it! I found out about Spellbinders through John Wagner. I met him at a writers group and he mentioned telling stories to children. I immediately became interested! I spent quite a bit of time at my son's school reading aloud to his classmates. I enjoyed it, but every now and then I wanted to change the story and get a little creative. That was hard to do because some 1st or 2nd grader would always say, "That's not what it says!" or something along those lines! So, telling a story without a book and without pictures was appealing.

My favorite type of story is probably those that are humorous. Bill Harley is one of my favorite storytellers so I tell a few by him. I guess my favorite story is his "Alisha and the Monster Under the Bed." (That's me dressed up like Bill Harley's Dirty Joe the Pirate in the photos.) I do, however, like to also tell stories from different cultures as well as historical tales. I also like to tell personal stories and weave them in with the fictional tales I tell. The children always seem a bit surprised that I was once a little girl!

I tell stories to 2nd, 3rd, 4th grades as well as Special Education classes. I think one of my favorite moments was during my first year. I was just beginning to tell a story about a beautiful princess. I said she had lovely hair, beautiful eyes and a wonderful smile and one little boy sitting right in front of me looked up and said, "Just like you!" I almost forgot the rest of the story! That, and the comments that they "love my stories" are all the rewards I need!

As far as anything I'd share with all of you I would say that coming to the monthly workshops is a great resource. Watching talented folks tell all kinds of stories is an incredible resource! I would also say that you definitely need to tell stories that are meaningful to you and that you truly enjoy telling. Excitement is contagious and if you are excited by or touched by the story the kids will be too. I read something recently that said, "Words that come from the heart enter the heart." (Wisdom of our Fathers by Tim Russert) I could not agree more!