Dummy and Company--spreading her message with humor

By Bill Wagnon

Lesha Campbell Everett is no dummy. She always knew deep in her heart what she wanted to do--she wanted to entertain. But it took a bunch of dummies to convince her to leave a struggling career in Los Angeles to begin a promising career closer to home.

Lesha is a ventriloquist, and over the past few years, she and her dummies, or puppets as she calls them, have entertained thousands of people of all ages literally across the United States. Her message is simple. She calls it "clean with a sting."

"I get across that there is a plan of salvation, but I do it with humor," the 1989 Mississippi State communication graduate explains. "Every show is something that parents can bring their kids to, but the parents will love also."

Everett is a natural at her work. There's no practice, no script. She just walks on stage and takes it from there.

"I ad lib everything," she says. "There's no preparation. I only worry if I'm doing a particular group for the third or fourth time. Then it can get tough."

Lesha first became interested in ventriloquism while watching an old Charlie McCarthy and Edgar Bergen movie at the age of five. That year Santa Claus brought her a Charlie McCarthy dummy she picked out of a Sears catalogue. "I didn't let mom and dad know he could talk for a while," she recalls. "I was afraid they would think I was crazy."

Lesha performed for the first time outside her family at a local benefit when she was nine. She was 12 before she actually began to read up on ventriloquism from information she received from a mail-order catalogue.

Over the years, she built a collection of puppets including Dennis, Sally, Koreena, LeRoy, and Lido Santizo "Taco", to name a few. "Dennis was the first one I actually bought myself," she explains. "I mowed yards to get him. My grandmother traveled a lot and brought me puppets."

As she grew up, Lesha performed at talent shows, birthday parties, and even went on the campaign trail with one aspiring politician. "In high school, when most people were working at McDonald's, the puppets were my part-time job," she laughs.

Lesha entered Mississippi State in 1984 to pursue a communication degree with hopes of landing a broadcasting or advertising job. She continued performing, however, auditioning for a summer job at Dolly Parton's Dollywood theme park in Tennessee. "I worked one season there and that's when I realized that I wanted to entertain for a living."

Lesha says she met Dolly during the season, but also met someone more important than Dolly. She met her manager. "He set me up with an agency," she notes. "I thought I wanted to be an actress. I thought to myself, 'I'm going to put these puppets away and do the acting thing in Los Angeles.'"

A year later, tired of the fast-paced life, low-paying jobs, and the auditions known as "cattle calls" in Hollywood, Lesha was home. "I came home to Grenada for a Christmas visit, and my dad asked me if he could keep me busy with work would I come home," she remembers. "I made more money with my puppets in one month than I made in L.A. renting cars.

"Daddy started booking me jobs in schools, conventions, banquets, meetings, and as the opening act for concerts as close as Starkville and as far away as Massachusetts, Nevada, North Carolina, and California."

Today, Lesha continues to perform, including crusades with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Through their own Ging Gong Management in Grenada, Lesha's parents book most of her appearances, and her Dummy and Company act is receiving national recognition. Most of her publicity, however, is by word of mouth from those who see her perform. She prides herself in bringing her puppets to life.

"The biggest compliment I can get is when I can make those in the audience believe the puppets are real," says Lesha. "I've had adults call me at home and want to speak to LeRoy or Dennis. I've been stopped in Wal-Mart by people two or three years after a show saying, 'Do you remember when LeRoy said so and so.' When they think the puppets are real, you've done your job.

"It's especially hard with the younger kids. I have kids who get upset sometimes when I go to put the puppets in their pillow cases. The kids think the puppets won't be able to breathe. I have to convince them that since the puppets are made out of cotton that they breathe cotton fibers and not oxygen like we do."

Lesha took time out from her promising career in 1994 to get married in the Chapel of Memories. Husband Lavell Everett, who has two degrees from Mississippi State and was a manager on the football team, teaches school and coaches high school football in Smithville, where the Everetts make their home.

Lesha says she hopes to take her act to bigger and better things. "I'm working with an agent in Nashville, and there are some positive things going on. Things work slow in show business. It's a matter of being in the right place at the right time with the right person."