Mike and Pam Dickson have provided a Christian clown and puppet ministry to the community for the past 20 years. Mike, 69, known as “Merkie,” and Pam, 61, known as “Missfit,” married in 1986. They have seven children and 20 grandchildren. They have brought smiles to thousands of children’s and adults’ faces. After entertaining and providing laughter for the community, they made a decision to retire and move from Warsaw to New Mexico this month. They will continue to do their face painting in New Mexico at festivals year-round, but no longer will be clowns. They have served as clowns in Kosciusko County at parades, churches, schools, Boys and Girls Club of Kosciusko County, festivals, campgrounds, parks department events, Kosciusko County Jail and First Fridays to name a few. “I haven’t left near the impact on this community that this community has left on me,” Pam said with tears in her eyes. “When you are a clown, every hug you get is sent from the Lord, and we have gotten a lot of hugs from this community.” For Pam’s 50th birthday, Mike purchased her a ventriloquist dummy and she took a class and took up ventriloquism. Pam said she got her clown name because she was born and raised in a religion where she was not allowed to celebrate birthdays, Christmas and said she felt like a misfit. Mike’s clown name, Merkie means dark, dirty water, which is what Pam said everyone is without Christ. They are known for their bib overall costume outfits. Pam dyed her bibs blue, and Mike’s are red. They purchased pink and red shirts and made a checkered tie for Mike, and purchased wigs and makeup at a clown store in Mishawaka. The Dicksons said it takes patience to be a clown. “We’ve had kids come up and stomp on our feet, and a 20-year-old girl was so afraid of clowns that she ran from us in an Arby’s,” Pam said. Mike said one of his favorite places to do clowning was at Pic-A-Spot Campground on Barbee Lake for the worship service on Sunday mornings, and Yogi Bear Campground, Pierceton. Pam said she enjoyed doing clowning at We Care Daycare Center for Warsaw Wesleyan Church and Presby Preschool. “Preschool audiences are the best because they love clowns, and you don’t get rejected because they accept and love you at that age,” Pam said. Besides serving as clowns, Pam worked at Zimmer from 1973-2002, and Mike worked at Zimmer from 1970-2005. In the early 1990s they directed a puppet ministry and had up to 14 children and adults who traveled with them on weekends, giving testimonies on how knowing Jesus changed their lives. “We taught a third-grade Sunday School class at Pleasant Grove United Methodist Church, and the only way we could get them to listen was with puppets,” Pam said. Pam took classes on how to make the puppets, and made some puppets herself. Pam came home one day with a newsletter that contained information about a clown ministry college, and she and Mike decided to take part in the program. They attended the clown ministry college in Michigan put on by the One Way Street Christian puppet ministries company where they learned about clowning. During the four-day conference, they learned how to apply makeup and set it in powder so the makeup would not run and learned how to do clown skits. They also attended clown conventions in Virginia, where they learned to face paint, and Kentucky. They’ve done vacation Bible school clown ministry as far away as Florida. “We found out professional clowns never paint their upper lip red and their mouths are never wider than their eyes,” Mike said. Pam said the only time she saw her husband go out of character as a clown was when a water balloon hit their sound system amplifier in their vehicle during a parade. “He went from being Merkie to Mad Mike,” Pam joked.The first clowning experience they had was at Palestine Bible Church in the 1990s and did puppet work. They began doing clowning at mother-daughter banquets, neighborhood parties and family reunions. “It was mostly a church ministry, and we got the Christian message across in a fun way with puppets and clowning,” Pam said. They developed “The Possum Ranch” when they had their home built on a five-acre plot of ground and Mike nicknamed it. They were doing puppet shows and ordered possum puppets from California. Their possum puppets names are Perkins and Pearly Mae. They recently had a garage sale and sold some of their puppets and props. They had approximately 100 puppets, and now they are down to 10. “The puppets have been like her kids almost with every puppet named,” Mike said.
