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Telegram Singer Puts Heart Into Her Work on Valentine’s Day

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SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

Teaching classes on positive parenting is serious business for Stephanie Main. It’s all about helping parents discipline their children in ways that keep the kids’ self-esteem intact.

But today, Main will climb into a Cupid outfit and become an entertainer delivering Valentine’s Day singing telegrams.

Up to 10 times today, Main, of Ventura, will go to someone’s home or business, carrying flowers, chocolate or champagne, and present the recipient with a heartfelt greeting in the form of a poem.

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“They’re meant to be touching and loving and from the heart, but they’re always funny,” she said.

It might seem an odd career combination. Through the classes she teaches at Ventura College, Main helps parents find new ways of dealing with their troubled kids. All the while, she moonlights as the mythical Roman god of love.

But Main, who is in her 30s, said without Cupid she never would have found the courage to speak in front of large groups, let alone pass along parenting advice.

“It’s kind of a funny evolution,” said Main, the mother of three. “I wouldn’t have been able to do the public speaking without the singing telegram background.”

For many, it seems, a singing telegram is the perfect way to say “I love you” on Valentine’s Day. Search the Web and you’ll get an idea of the variety of singing telegrams available: clowns, Amazon men and women, and cartoon characters are among the popular offerings. Some singing telegram services specialize in children’s parties while others are strictly for adults. There’s even an Elvis impersonator covering the King’s career “from baggy suits to black leather to the jumpsuits of the Las Vegas years.”

All of the singers in Main’s Singing Telegram Service of Ventura are suitable for anyone, she said. “It’s all done in good taste.”

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Main got her start in the singing telegram business 14 years ago as a way to put herself through Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in communication arts while trying to make it in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles. The closest she came to hitting it big was as a contestant on “The $25,000 Pyramid” and “Wheel of Fortune.” Later, while watching another game show, Main came up with the idea to do singing telegrams.

“This contestant said she was a singing telegram,” she recalled. “I thought, ‘I could do that.’ ”

“My background wasn’t in singing, it was in theater. But I can project very well, and I can entertain.”

She contacted a singing telegram service in Thousand Oaks and was hired.

“My first job was as a gorilla,” she said. “I popped out [of the suit] as Jane.”

Within a couple of years, about the time her boss closed up shop, Main was ready to start her own business. The competition for clean singing telegrams, she said, was nowhere to be found--and she was happy to fill a niche.

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About the same time, Main and her husband, Kerry, had their first child, Billy, now 12. In 1993 she had her second child, Christian, but Main continued with the business.

“We had our third baby, Samantha, in 1997, and that’s when I thought I’d quit for good. I knew how hard it had been raising kids and singing,” Main recalled.

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But singing telegrams wait for no child. Even though she dropped the business name, removed the number from the phone book and pretty much had called it quits, eager customers kept tracking her down. She decided to do it again, on a smaller basis.

Feb. 14 is Main’s busiest day of the year.

“I make six to 10 runs that day. It’s always a last-minute rush, going out, coming back, loading up, getting to the next place.”

Most of her clients are husbands and boyfriends, but sometimes a mother will send a singing telegram to a daughter.

“Cupid shows up with a mock bow and arrow, and there’s a little horn that he blows,” she explained. The visit includes a medley of love songs and ends with a poem.

If the sender isn’t the creative type, Main provides words of romance.

In a twist on the romance theme, Main also dresses up as a satin heart and will read aloud the following poem:

Roses are red, singing hearts are too, no words can say how much I love you. So I sent you balloons and some champagne and a song, in hopes of brightening your day along.

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When the presentations go as planned, the recipients--usually women--will cry tears of joy. But sometimes, the unexpected happens.

“One time I was doing a gorilla-gram at Ventura County Mental Health for a staff person,” Main said. “A salesman came in and tried to sell me books. I just shook my head and thought, ‘This guy’s trying to sell books to a gorilla.’ ”

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