Students at a Texas High School Came Together to Help Their Janitor Retire

In response to their 80-year-old janitor having to return to work due to a rent hike, students at Callisburg High School in Texas have raised over $200,000 through a GoFundMe campaign. The original goal was only $10,000, but the overwhelming response has allowed Mr. James to retire comfortably. This act of kindness is just one example of how people are using crowdfunding platforms to help those in need attain financial stability and peace of mind in retirement.

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Zoo Manager Stays 3 Nights To Protect Animals During Massive Blizzard

At Wildwood Zoo, the snow came down so hard that even the people caring for the animals got trapped. When a blizzard dumped more than two feet of snow on the zoo in Marshfield, Wisconsin, manager Kyle Kirk stayed at the facility for three straight nights to care for animals across all 27 species. “This is the most snow I think I’ve ever seen in my whole life,” Kirk said. At one point, the storm pinned him inside the staff building. “There was a solid hour that I really couldn’t help really anybody because I was completely snowed in,” he said. Once he could get back outside, Kirk started digging out smaller animals that had been buried under the snow, including quail, prairie dogs and skunks. “I was able to dig them out… our skunks were completely snowed in,” he said. Even in the middle of the storm, Kirk said there was a lighter moment with the skunks. “It was kind of comical because I think our skunks thought that I brought the snow… they were stomping at me and saying, ‘Oh, you can take away the snow now,’” he said. Kirk also carved paths through enclosures so porcupines and skunks could move around again. He checked on foxes that had already shed their winter coats to make sure they were warm enough during the sudden freeze. Some of the larger animals handled the conditions with little trouble. The Kodiak bears lounged comfortably, and the lynx appeared well-suited to the deep snow. “It was really fun to see him walking on top of the snow with his great big paws,” Kirk said. “He could have went for another two feet for sure.” Not every animal managed as easily. Kirk said he had to lift sandhill cranes out of the snow after they got stuck. For him, staying at the zoo through the blizzard was simply part of the job. “A lot of other people can call in sick or get snowed in, but simply, I can’t,” Kirk said. “There’s really no reason to have these animals if we’re not going to care for them in the best possible way at our disposal.” 📸credit: WSAW Newschannel 7

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An Airport Crowd Gave 53 Veterans A Hero’s Welcome After an Honor Flight Landing

A Southwest Airlines announcement turned an airport arrival into a public salute for 53 veterans. According to @davidjharrisjr on Instagram, an Honor Flight carrying 53 veterans landed and drew a cheering welcome from people at the airport. The veterans were described as being of varying ages and mobility levels as they exited the plane. David J. Harris Jr. says the moment showed how touched the veterans were by what it called a simple but powerful gesture. It also said Coffey Anderson’s song "Mr. Red White and Blue" played as the group arrived. The reaction continued online, where the source text said thousands of people in the comment section shared their feelings about the welcome. “How we should ALWAYS treat our veterans,” one commenter wrote. Another added, “It’s the homecoming these Vietnam vets should have gotten the first time they came home.” A military wife also commented about her husband’s experience after service. “We owe them a huge debt of gratitude. My husband came home injured with no fanfare. He would serve again if he could!” she wrote. Anderson also responded to the video and said he was glad his music was part of the veterans’ arrival. “Thank y’all for using my song, Mr. Red White and Blue” for this video. Patriotism isn’t going anywhere! We love and honor ALL those that served. All gave some. Some gave all,” he wrote. The source text described veterans as a group that deserves thanks and support, noting that military service often means long periods away from family and friends and, for some, never coming home. The airport welcome came after Southwest Airlines announced the Honor Flight was arriving with 53 veterans on board. 📸 credit: davidjharrisjr

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9-Year-Old Powerlifter Lucy Milgrim Stuns With 180-Pound Deadlift

A 9-year-old deadlifting 180 pounds will get people talking. For Lucy Milgrim, it also brought millions of views. The New York girl has gone viral after an Instagram video showed her lifting 180 pounds at the Arnold Sports Festival in Columbus, Ohio. In the clip, Milgrim wears bright pink and blue shoes and a custom powerlifting belt as she deadlifts the weight with AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" playing in the background. After lifting the bar to her waist, she drops it, smiles at the crowd, flexes her muscles and gives her father and coach, Brett Milgrim, a high-five. Brett Milgrim said the lift was impressive, but not something she will try to top again soon. "It was a cool thing to do, but in terms of when she's going to attempt a big number like that again, not for a long time," he said. The video has more than 3 million views on Instagram. In many ways, Milgrim's life looks like that of other 9-year-old girls. She likes spending time with friends, making arts and crafts and studying math at school. She also competes in wrestling, powerlifting, boxing and jiu-jitsu. Milgrim told USA TODAY that she has squatted 150 pounds and bench pressed 85 pounds. Her mother, Michelle Milgrim, told USA TODAY that during her first year of powerlifting, Lucy set three American Records through USA Powerlifting. Brett Milgrim told USA TODAY his daughter has always been unusually strong. "People see these numbers, and they say, 'Wow, she must be training really hard to get that number.' The truth is, she just has a different baseline than most kids," Brett told USA TODAY. "Lucy's always been this really naturally strong kid." Milgrim said she has wrestled competitively for three years. She said she became interested after watching her parents work out and after going with her father and brother to wrestling practices. "My mom and dad; they were working out in the gym, and I saw them doing all this cool stuff, and I wanted to try it too," Milgrim said. "I got interested in wrestling because my dad (is) a wrestling coach and he used to bring me and my brother to wrestling practices." She said she goes to wrestling practice four or five days a week and trains in the family's home gym once a week, usually on Sundays. One of her wrestling coaches is Vougar Oroudjov, who won the bronze medal for light-flyweight wrestling at the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics. Milgrim said her favorite part of wrestling is being with friends and winning. "My favorite part of wrestling is when you get to hang out with all your friends, and when you win the match, you get your hand raised," Milgrim said. When it comes to powerlifting, she said her favorite part is hitting a "really big weight." At home, Brett Milgrim said he focuses on teaching skill rather than testing how much weight his daughter can move. "We don't really chase numbers," Brett said. "What I'm really looking for when I'm having Lucy ... workout with is ... for (her) to maintain postural control throughout a movement that can be repeated, so not something that can be done once for an impressive number." He said only about one-third of her training includes lifting weights. Most of it is calisthenics, including hang cleans, box jumps, one-legged jumps, push-ups and sit-ups. "When she did the 180 (-pound deadlift), there's obvious amount of strain to perform the lift, but what I was most impressed about was that she maintained postural control and technique throughout the movement," Brett said. Questions about youth strength training often follow videos like Milgrim's. According to an American Academy of Pediatrics report published in 2020 and reaffirmed in 2024, children who take part in resistance training are likely to see improvements in health, fitness, rehabilitation of injuries, injury reduction and physical literacy. The report says injury rates are low when proper technique is well supervised. The report also says overtraining, including prolonged heavy loads or too little recovery time between sessions, has been tied to increased injuries and illness in children. The AAP recommends one to two days of rest per week from training. It also says adequate caloric and fluid intake is important for a healthy body and mind. The Mayo Clinic says non-weighted strength training can be part of a children's fitness plan from age 7 or 8. Organizations including the AAP and Mayo Clinic recommend medical consultation before a child begins resistance training. Michelle Milgrim told USA TODAY her daughter sees a pediatrician every year and works regularly with a physical therapist. Lucy Milgrim's Instagram account, managed by her mother, had 174,000 followers as of March 19. Brett Milgrim said Lucy does not track that side of it. "She doesn't look at comments. She doesn't know amounts of followers or views or any of that. She's a 9-year-old girl. She does 9-year-old girl things," Brett added. "She'll go to wrestling practices, and she'll come home and put on a dress and ... play with her little sister." 📸credit: @Lucy.Milgrim on IG

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This Week’s Good News Highlights Trains, Villages And Mobile Clinics

Some weeks in the news feel especially heavy. But this one also came with a long list of wins, from housing and health care to cleaner transit and lower violence. In Minneapolis, a warehouse filled with 100 indoor tiny homes is helping keep people off the streets during one of the coldest times of year. Housing advocates opened Avivo Village in December 2020 as an indoor community of 100 secure, private tiny houses for people at risk of sleeping outside. The warehouse village gives residents their own units and “the freedom to come and go as they please.” Since it opened, the shelter has supported more than 800 people through temporary housing, placed 340 people in permanent housing, and reversed nearly 250 overdoses. The need is clear in Minnesota, where winter temperatures can turn dangerous fast. The source notes that people can suffer from hypothermia in any temperature below 35 degrees. In California, Caltrain’s long-awaited electrification project is now complete. The commuter rail line linking San Francisco to Silicon Valley finished a $2.4 billion upgrade in 2024, electrifying 51 miles of track between San Francisco and San Jose and replacing diesel trains with electric ones. The result is faster service and less pollution. Electric trains now cut travel times by as much as 23 minutes, and weekday station service has risen by 20 percent with more trains and more stops. The project also reduced riders’ exposure to carcinogenic black carbon by about 89 percent and could cut about 250,000 metric tons of carbon emissions each year. Off the coast of New England, Rhode Island’s first utility-scale offshore wind farm has started sending electricity to the grid. Revolution Wind is now online after repeated efforts by the Trump administration to shut it down. The project will supply power for more than 350,000 homes in Rhode Island and Connecticut. Officials expect it to save customers an estimated $500 million annually by displacing more expensive power. The wind farm is 93 percent complete and is expected to be fully operational before the end of the year. In public health, New York and Utah led a new “Childhood Index” released by the Anxious Generation Movement, a public-health nonprofit that ranked all 50 states on laws around childhood independence, social media age limits, and tech regulation. The two states were the only ones classified as “national leaders,” after recently putting in place “bell-to-bell” bans on phone use. Six other states, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Nebraska, Texas, and Vermont, were labeled “rising stars” for progress on at least two policy priorities. A separate analysis pointed to cleaner air in cities around the globe. Researchers found that 19 cities, including London, San Francisco, and Beijing, posted “remarkable reductions” in air pollution, cutting two pollutants by more than 20 percent since 2010. The analysis linked those improvements to bike lanes, more electric cars, and restrictions on polluting vehicles. Beijing and Warsaw cut fine particulate pollution by more than 40 percent. Amsterdam and Rotterdam cut nitrogen dioxide by more than 40 percent. In the United States, San Francisco was the only city to reduce both pollutants by more than 20 percent. The source summed it up this way: “we have the tools to solve this crisis right now.” Sweden also reported a sharp drop in shootings. In 2025, shooting incidents fell to 147, according to Reuters. That was down 63 percent from 2022, when there were 390 shootings, and down 49 percent from 2024. The decline followed new policing strategies introduced by the government elected in 2022. Those measures included expanded electronic surveillance, anonymous witnesses in court, tougher sentencing, “safety zones” that let officers carry out searches without suspicion, and stronger efforts to seize gang assets and disrupt planned attacks. In Florida, a mobile maternity clinic is trying to fill a major gap in care. Only three of the 14 counties in north-central Florida provide full access to obstetric care. Six counties have low access, and the remaining five are considered “care deserts,” where around 3,400 women of childbearing age live. UF Health launched the OB/GYN Mobile Outreach Clinic in February 2025 to provide free maternal health services, including prenatal and postpartum care, breastfeeding support, and family planning. In its first year, the clinic served nearly 200 women across four counties. Research has linked longer travel distances for obstetric care with worse infant and maternal health outcomes. The source says mobile clinics can help address that problem for the 2.5 million American women of childbearing age who live in a maternity care desert. In Rhode Island, two friends who both experienced homelessness are now helping others rebuild their lives. Shula Kitkowska and Louis Peralta met in a local supportive housing program. Peralta had spent 25 years buying discounted storage units, selling some items and throwing the rest away. Kitkowska saw that many of those discarded goods could help people in need. Together they started Up 2 Us Neighbors. The group now handles about 100 requests a day for clothing, cribs, household items, shoes, and other basics. And in Chile, the World Health Organization officially verified in early March that the country has eliminated leprosy. Chile is the first country in the Americas, and the second globally, to do so. The verification followed a review by an independent expert panel, which found that Chile has had no locally acquired cases for more than 30 years and has strong systems in place to monitor and respond to any future cases. The milestone followed decades of surveillance, early diagnosis, multidrug therapy, and inclusive health services.

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Bowser-Inspired Mini Popcorn Bucket Sets Guinness World Record

It takes a lot to stand out in the movie snack line these days, but this one is barely bigger than the popcorn itself. Guinness World Records says the new recordholder for the "World’s Smallest Popcorn Container" is a concession bucket inspired by a tiny cauldron featured in the upcoming "Super Mario Galaxy Movie." The container is dubbed a "faithful replica" of Bowser’s tiny cauldron and serves as a "playful homage" to the new film, which opens in theaters April 1. At 2.6 inches across at its widest point, the cauldron holds between five and 11 kernels of popcorn. Guinness calls it the "smallest functional popcorn vessel on record." The release lands as movie theaters keep leaning into unusual popcorn buckets tied to major films. In recent years, theaters have drawn attention for specialty containers including the sandworm-like bucket for "Dune Part Two," a disappearing illusion box for "Now You See Me: Now You Don't" and a baby sling carrier for "Despicable Me 4" that is worn on the front of the chest. In a joint statement, Illumination, Nintendo and Universal Products & Experiences said: "The miniature cauldron represents the latest example of the growing role of theatrical collectibles in creating immersive cinema experiences, giving audiences a unique way to celebrate the worlds and characters they love long after the credits roll." The "world's smallest popcorn container" goes on sale Wednesday, April 1, at participating cinemas, including AMC Theatres. Illumination, Nintendo and Universal Products & Experiences said the collectible popcorn cauldron turns a story element from the 2023 film "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" into a piece of theatrical memorabilia for fans. Yoshi and Luma popcorn buckets will also be released on April 1 alongside Bowser's tiny cauldrons to mark the release of the new film. Other "Super Mario Galaxy Movie" merchandise is already available at select retailers nationwide, including limited-edition plushes, action figures, clothing and shower products.

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Teen Boy Scout Receives Rare Medal of Honor After Saving His Troop Leader On a Georgia River

What started as a summer rafting trip on a Georgia river ended with a Boy Scout saving his troop leader’s life, and two years later, that act has earned him one of Scouting America’s rarest awards. Devon Champenoy, now 15, received the Honor Medal with Crossed Palms this month, according to the Red Wolf District. CBS affiliate KHOU reported that fewer than 300 scouts have received the award in Scouting America’s history. The award recognizes what was described as Champenoy’s “unusual heroism and extraordinary skill” after a 2022 rafting trip near the Blue Ridge Mountains went wrong. “I didn’t feel it at the moment. It was just instinct,” Champenoy told KHOU of the risks he took to save Assistant Scoutmaster David Lemley. “It took a while for me to accept that I saved a life, but I think now I have,” he continued. According to KHOU, scouts in Troop 277 were at summer camp in northern Georgia when they went rafting on Class III rapids. Lemley was on a raft with Champenoy and other scouts when the group hit rough water. Lemley was thrown from the raft twice. The second time, he could not pull himself back in because his foot was stuck. “My waist and head were underwater,” Lemley told KHOU. “My head’s just bouncing off rocks.” For minutes, he struggled to breathe, according to the report. Champenoy then helped free Lemley’s foot and guided the raft to safety. In comments written in response to the Red Wolf District’s announcement, Lemley described what happened next. “Devon took control of the raft and, for the next 15 to 20 minutes, navigated the strong currents,” Lemley wrote, “while guiding several first-time campers (10 to 11 years old) safely through multiple sets of rapids until they reached calmer water.” KHOU reported that Lemley broke his foot during the incident. “There’s no doubt in my mind — had Devon not stepped in to free my foot, I was going to die,” Lemley told the outlet. The recognition Champenoy received this month is one few scouts ever get. The Red Wolf District announced the award as the Honor Medal with Crossed Palms, and KHOU reported that fewer than 300 have been given out in the organization’s history. The rescue happened when Champenoy was 13. He is now working toward becoming an Eagle Scout, according to the report. His account of the moment stayed simple. “I didn’t feel it at the moment. It was just instinct,” Champenoy told KHOU. “It took a while for me to accept that I saved a life, but I think now I have.” 📸credit: Red Wolf District Facebook

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Virtual Reality is Helping People With Hoarding Disorder Let Go Of Clutter

For people with a hoarding disorder, throwing something away can feel overwhelming. A recent Stanford University study tested a new way to make that first step easier, by letting patients practice in virtual reality before doing it in real life. In the study, nine adults with diagnosed hoarding disorders created 3D virtual reality versions of their most cluttered rooms. All of the participants were over 55. With guidance from a clinician, the patients then spent weeks moving through the virtual space, handling virtual versions of their belongings and throwing them away. Carolyn Rodriguez, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and senior author of the study, said the virtual experience can act as “a kind of stepping stone,” or a less intense version of real-life discarding. “It's nice to be able to [practice] in a virtual space for people who experience considerable distress even attempting to part with possessions,” she said. The first-of-its-kind study ran for 16 weeks. During the first six weeks, each patient attended an online support group designed to help them build skills through cognitive behavioral therapy. From weeks seven to 14, participants practiced decluttering in their virtual room. By the end of the study, the majority of participants were able to part with the items in real life too. Rodriguez said the work also pushes back against common assumptions about hoarding disorder. “People tend to have a lot of biases against hoarding disorder and see it as a personal limitation instead of a neurobiological entity,” Rodriguez said. “We just really want to get the word out that there's hope and treatment for people who suffer from this. They don't have to go it alone.”

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Texas Hiker Nears Finish Of 1,500-Mile Trail He Created Across The State

A new long-distance trail across Texas is about to get its first full walk. Charlie Gandy, 67, is set to become the first adventurer to complete the Cross-Texas Trail, or xTx, a 1,500-mile route he created across the state. Gandy and his two hiking companions are moving westward and are scheduled to arrive in El Paso, on the border with New Mexico, on March 31 after walking the full length of the route. Gandy also put $10,000 into the project as he worked to build the xTx into a route for hikers, cyclists and horseback riders. The trail launched as a project in August 2024. It is meant to be used in late fall, winter and early spring, when heat and water conditions are less harsh. Gandy said the idea came from the work of one person who helped turn two of the country’s best-known long-distance routes into major goals for hikers. “As a native Texan, I’m a 66-year-old guy who likes to challenge myself to big, hairy goals and adventures, and it seemed to me like it was time for Texas to have its own Pacific Crest-type adventure route,” Gandy told Fox News Digital. Building the route meant more than mapping a line across the state. Gandy’s work included finding sponsors and helping create an organization that could produce digital and printed information and publicize the trail nationwide. He also needed people willing to place water stations in desert areas. And because 96 percent of Texas land is privately owned, he needed landowners willing to let the route pass through their property. That part of the effort drew strong interest. Gandy and his chief partner in the project, the nonprofit advocacy group Bike Texas, received a flood of suggestions from Texans about where the route should go. Many invited the trail to cross their own land. In its current form, the xTx runs through rural Texas and links public paved, gravel and dirt roads. It passes near or through parts of 17 state parks and three national parks. Like the Appalachian Trail, Gandy said, the xTx will take years to reach its full potential. “We’re establishing a 1,500-mile seasonal late fall through early spring hiking, cycling, and horseback trail through the heart of true Texas. It’s the first of its kind for the state,” Gandy said in a statement from his current position around Toyah, Texas. The route Gandy is walking now has largely followed the original working path created for the full trail. His progress as he approaches the finish line can be tracked on the Ride with GPS website. The trail begins near Beaumont on Texas’s eastern border. From there, it heads through bayous and follows what was described as a more-or-less flat decline from the hills north of Houston. It then moves through a gap between San Antonio and Austin and includes a loop above New Braunfels. After that detour, the route climbs slightly north through the desert before dropping into Big Bend National Park in a large horseshoe curve. From there, it turns directly north to the highest peak in the state in the Guadalupe Mountains, then west to El Paso. The xTx is being presented as America’s newest long-distance hiking route, and Gandy is on pace to be the first person to walk it end to end. His trip also marks the latest stage in a project that only began last year. Since August 2024, the route has grown from an idea into a mapped seasonal trail that threads across public roads, private property access points, state parks and national parks. For now, Gandy remains the route’s creator and its first full-distance walker, closing in on the western end of the state after starting near Beaumont and crossing Texas on foot with two companions. “We’re establishing a 1,500-mile seasonal late fall through early spring hiking, cycling, and horseback trail through the heart of true Texas. It’s the first of its kind for the state,” Gandy told Fox News Digital.

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Study Finds Bilingual Mothers Bond Just As Well With Toddlers In A Second Language

For parents raising kids in two languages, there is often a quiet question in the background. Does speaking a second language change the connection with a child? A new study from the UK says it does not. Researchers found that bilingual mothers and their toddlers showed the same level of neural synchrony during play in English as they did in the mothers’ native language. The study suggests that the brain-to-brain connection linked to bonding, communication and learning does not depend on native proficiency. The findings were published in Frontiers in Cognition. Neural synchrony, also called interbrain synchrony, is the simultaneous activity of neural networks across the brains of people who are socially interacting. It can happen while people are talking, learning, singing or working together. When brains are in sync, it can help strengthen emotional connection, improve communication and align attention. Researchers say this kind of synchrony is thought to matter for healthy bonding between parents and children. “Here we show that the brains of bilingual moms and their kids stay just as ‘in sync’ through neural synchrony irrespective of whether they play in the mom’s native language or in an acquired second language,” said first author Efstratia Papoutselou, a research fellow at the School of Medicine of the University of Nottingham. “This is an important finding because it suggests that using a second language doesn’t disrupt the brain-to-brain connection that supports bonding and communication.” The research team said the question matters because many children grow up in households where more than one language is spoken. In the European Union, the share of these “mixed households” rose from 8 percent to 15.6 percent between 2014 and 2023. The authors said the social, cognitive and academic benefits of growing up with more than one language are obvious. But they also wanted to test a possible drawback in parent-child communication and bonding. They noted that even highly proficient speakers often use an acquired language more slowly, with more pauses and corrections, especially in emotionally charged or cognitively demanding situations. “Second-language speakers often report a sense of emotional distancing when using their non-native language, which may influence how they express affection, discipline, or empathy in parent-child interactions,” wrote the authors. The study focused on 15 families in the UK. The children were aged between three and four and had been raised bilingually. English was not the mothers’ first language, but they had learned it at C1 or C2 level under the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. Each mother and child visited a research clinic and sat at a table with toys. Both wore a functional near-infrared spectroscopy, or fNIRS, cap. The device measured changes in oxygen concentration across the brain’s blood vessels, which the researchers used as a proxy for neural activity. The pairs then played in three different situations, presented in random order. In one, they played together in the mother’s native language, as they would at home. In another, they played together only in English. In the third, they played silently and independently with a screen between them. The measurements showed statistically significant neural synchrony in each mother-child pair. The synchrony was stronger during interactive play than during independent play. It was especially strong in the prefrontal cortex, which the researchers described as a hub for decision-making, planning, reasoning and emotions. It was weaker in the temporo-parietal junction regions, which regulate social cognition and attention. Most importantly, the researchers found that brain synchrony was equally strong when the pairs played in English and when they played in their mother’s native language. The team concluded that speaking an acquired language did not reduce a mother’s ability to synchronize her brain activity with her child’s during interactive play. They said the findings suggest that this condition for effective learning and bonding can be met regardless of language. “Bilingualism is sometimes seen as a challenge but can give real advantages in life. Our research shows that growing up with more than one language can also support healthy communication and learning,” concluded Dr Douglas Hartley, a professor at the NIHR Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre and the study’s senior author. Photo by kelvin agustinus on Pexels (https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-and-children-taking-photo-1096141/)

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A Scottish Puppet Maker Says He's Vowing To Keep the Endangered Marionette Craft Alive

For Stephen Foster, a puppet is not a prop. It is a theatre instrument that has to move well, last for years and hold an audience’s attention. The 47-year-old from East Kilbride in Scotland is one of as few as six people making marionette puppets in Britain, in a craft now officially recognised as endangered. He made his first puppet at high school after finding a pattern in an old book during a woodworking class, and has kept at it ever since. "The first time I made a marionette was at high school, when we had a woodworking class in fifth year," Stephen said. "We could choose whatever we wanted to make. "There was an old book by a marionette maker called Waldo Lanchester, and he had a pattern on the back of it to make a puppet. "I redid it when I met my mentor when I went to college, and made it a bit lighter and more flexible, and then continued to make them on and off after that." Stephen later studied theatre in college, where he focused on puppetry and met the mentor who taught him the craft. Over the years, he has worked in a range of jobs, often in theatre, while keeping puppet making as a side job. He said that work is driven by two basic questions, what the puppet should look like and what it needs to do. "The first part of the process is finding out what the character is and what it's going to look like, so you design the visuals of it," Stephen said. "Then you've got to find out what it's got to do, because there's no point in making something that looks really nice but can't move well, or concentrating on the walk when in reality it's going to be static. "It can be a long process, and especially with marionettes, a bit of trial and error, because balance is so important with them." A single puppet can take several weeks to a month to make, depending on how detailed or flexible it needs to be. Stephen often uses them himself in workshops and performances, and has also made custom pieces for puppeteers and collectors around the country. He said some of the pieces he made 25 years ago still work. "I did some for an exhibition, they were designs based on real ballet costumes, so I had to interpret the costumes so you could recognise them from the original designs," he said. "I don't know of the ones I've sold on that are still in use, but some of the early ones that I've made 25 years ago, I've still got working. "It's important to make the puppets good from a technical point of view. "I look at them like instruments in a theatre, you've got to make them perform properly. They've got to be robust; they've got to last. "You don't generally get duff musical instruments in orchestras, they're all good quality. "It's the same with the puppets. They've got to be of a standard so that they perform properly and the performer can get everything out of them." The trade is now under pressure. A recent estimate from Heritage Crafts suggests there are only between 6 and 20 people in the UK working full-time or part-time in marionette making. Stephen said traditional marionettes have become less popular in part because they take a long time to learn to operate smoothly. "It's a difficult thing professionally, because it takes a long time for someone to learn," he said. "Even if you are used to marionettes, you have to almost break one in to get used to it. "Recently, they tend to be more private or decorative pieces to work with." Even so, he wants to keep the craft going because he sees puppet theatre as many children’s first contact with the stage. "A good live theatre experience is incredible," he said. "Puppet theatre is an entryway for most kids into theatre. "From an experience point of view for the audience, it's important that what you create is of a high standard and it encourages people to come back to the theatre. "If you get that right, you've possibly set up an audience for future plays, future theatre-goers to keep that alive."

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