(courtesy This Week News)
10 February 2005 - By Cathy Wogan


(News photo by Paul Vernon)
Debbie Taylor, performing as Mrs. Sparkles, sings durings the Giggle Factory event Sunday at Hilliard Davidson High School.

"Sparkle on and have a great day," says Debbie Taylor, also known as Mrs. Sparkles, when she leaves the room.

Taylor, a unified arts teacher who instructs kindergartners in music and movement in the Hilliard City School District, evolved into Mrs. Sparkles about 10 years ago. Her bright, shiny clothes and her upbeat personality sparkled as she worked with the children, and they're the ones who gave her the name.

"After teaching 25 years, I know what they like," she said.

On Feb. 3, Taylor had the children at Beacon Elementary get on the floor of the gym and pretend to be groundhogs while she played her sticker-covered guitar and sang to them.

She has each group of her kindergartners in class for about an hour a week, Taylor said, and during that hour they play and have fun. It's the way kindergarten used to be, she said.

"It is not so academic," she said. "They're doing what kindergartners should be doing."

Then, about eight years ago, she "sparklized." The children began to think of her as one of them.

"Most people don't know I'm Debbie Taylor," she said. "I have no discipline problems. It's a kids' club. It's kind of magical."

Taylor, who plays guitar and sings old and new songs with the children, received a grant from the Hilliard Education Foundation (HEF) to produce a CD of her favorite songs used in the classroom. With production of the CD "Kaleidoscope," she said, even the older children in elementary school discovered her. Fifth-graders began asking for her autograph.

With about 300 of her CDs left to sell, Taylor was talking to her friend Robin Brenneman about it. Brenneman theatre director at Hilliard Davidson suggested that Mrs Sparkles appear in the school's annual "Sunday Afternoon with the Giggle Factory" Feb. 6 and see if she could sell some more CDs there.

Taylor wanted to use the money for a UNICEF donation to help with tsunami relief, and to pay back the HEF – not a requirement of the grant.

So she agreed.

Davidson's "Giggle Factory" is a group of theatre students – this year, about 15 of them – who develop clown personas and skits and entertain as a traveling troupe at birthday parties and other kids' events, Brenneman said. The Giggle Factory's big annual event is its Sunday Afternoon with the Giggle Factory, held at the school and followed by an abbreviated version of a carnival in the school's commons area. After performing in the show, it was during the carnival that Taylor sold her CDS and an accompanying coloring book. She said she thinks it is a combination of her glittery persona and outgoing personality, entertaining songs and the games she plays with children, that have made her Mrs. Sparkles.

As she says in one of her songs, she is "spreading sparkles everywhere."

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