Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 14, 1993 TAG: 9301140351
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROBIN PRICE SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
PURPOSEFUL PUPPETS
KATIE Highfill's basement is filled with scraps of colorful material and unfinished puppets, hats and cutouts - telltale signs of a new business, called Kapers.It took months of research, telephone calls and designing before Highfill, a former art teacher, and her partner, Sandra Whitt, a school librarian, got Kapers off the drawing board.
Kapers is both the product and the company. The company produces and distributes instructional devices used to bring stories to life. Using hook and loop material and colorful, stuffed ambiguous pieces, one can create animals or other elements of stories, especially children's tales.
Highfill handles most of the business and production end while Whitt, librarian at Oak Grove Elementary School, is the main promoter, using products daily in school.
Whitt got the idea for the product about a year ago at an educational conference where a storyteller used laminated pictures stuck to an apron with Velcro.
Whitt saw potential in the modular educational device. The concept was great, but the product needed work, she thought.
She needed someone who was "talented, enthusiastic and charismatic" to make needed adaptions. Immediately, she thought of Highfill, who previously taught with her and made unusual designs for clothing.
After considering a project, Highfill "attacks things with a vengeance. . . . Nothing she does is halfhearted. Once she sets her mind to it, it's going to be perfect," Whitt said.
Highfill, who stopped teaching art to have her two children, was running her own art business, Katie-Did-It, and trying to decide whether to renew her teaching certificate.
Early in 1992, after seeing the device, Highfill began to focus all the "energy and resources designated for recertification or my art business" on Kapers.
The duo experimented with materials and shapes, leaving the ones that didn't work in Highfill's basement. They came upon the name the same way. On a Sunday morning in March, the two decided to make a hooded cape to attach some of their designs to.
"The cape was the most dramatic accessory, so the name grew from it as did the logo featuring an exuberant character," Highfill said.
She and Whitt say their product is educational and entertaining, and they worry youngsters are only interested because of the entertainment aspect.
Kapers uses bright colors and various designs in its approach to learning or entertaining. It doesn't discourage imagination as other visual storytellers do, Highfill and Whitt said. It, in fact, encourages creativity by letting the children make characters as they envision them.
Whitt said she uses Kapers during storytelling at Oak Grove. She stops being a librarian or storyteller and disappears into the characters - using hats, T-shirts, capes and headbands to change from fish to monsters to robbers to animals and other people. The puppets help her tell stories.
"Teachers are performers. . . . You have to be to keep the students interested . . ., " said Whitt. Teachers must present information in many formats to cover all the various ways - visually, audibly and manipulatively - students learn, she said.
Whitt and Highfill also have sold their product to physical therapists who use the devices to encourage reaching and pulling.
A New York psychiatrist also uses the puppets to talk with nervous children. She treats an 11-year-old who thinks that the products are "cool." Highfill and Whitt have invested $3,000 to date and have yet to make a profit. They expected the product to sell itself, but as with most new inventions, it's taken a lot of promoting and campaigning to get Kapers off the ground. Some of their items are on sale at Imagination Station.
Kapers already has been through four puppet designs, trying to find one with the greatest number of possibilities for different creations. Ideas are still blooming, but expenses and time are holding them back.
Highfill and Whitt contacted numerous companies until they found the just right suppliers of nylon, Velcro and vinyl.
They called one company about the rubber used in its ball and other company about nylon and were amazed at the cooperation they received. "I didn't expect them to reveal their sources," said Highfill.
One set of eyes takes an hour to make. Professional seamstresses sew for Kapers in the evening, but it still takes eight hours to make 36 sets of eyes.
But, Highfill, who handles most of the business work, isn't discouraged. "The entire time I've been designing and producing Kapers products, I've used expertise and ideas from all the things I've ever made and all the art lessons I've ever taught. All my talents and experiences have come to bear in this endeavor," Highfill said.
Memo: NOTE: Also ran in January 24, 1993 Current.