Do you know why an opossum plays dead? The Rev. Dr. Jim Stigall does. Stigall, a storyteller from Ottawa, told Iola students tales of silly frogs and jealous bones.
Stigall is the Storyteller in Residence for Allen County, a position funded by the Sleeper Family Trust. He has been featured at several story telling festivals in Kansas and neighboring states.
Monday afternoon he told McKinley Elementary students a story about opossums and how he loved eating frogs at every meal. As he got older the frogs became too fast for him to catch. They would tease him because they knew he couldn’t get them. Opossum’s friend Rabbit helped devise a plan to catch more frogs.
Another story was about mean Owen Jones. Owen was the meanest man in all of Allen County so when he died nobody cared. His wife Emma Lou was liked by Odis, a fiddler. When Owen died Odis wanted to come a courting but Owen wasn’t going to let that happen. Even from the grave.
Stigall has a bachelor’s degree in elementary education and a master’s degree in special education. He and his wife Jo Ann taught on a Navajo reservation in New Mexico after completing his schooling. Upon returning to the Midwest Stigall worked with a work study program for developmentally disabled high school students before going into ministry full time in 1975.
Storyteller enthralls area students
