Jan Goodwin

Jan Goodwin resides with her husband Dick at Holiday Shores, Illinois, just 25 miles northeast of St. Louis, Missouri. Jan learned ventriloquism in the late 1970's to help her church reach out to children. Her creative efforts not only helped her church outreach to children, she became a popular speaker for adult audiences on the national level for church retreats, annual meetings, reunions, seminars, and workshops. She continued her ventriloquism as an avocation through the 1980's while juggling full time career and family life. In 1990, though her affiliation with IMPACT, an Alton, Illinois, based disability rights and peer support organization, she began focusing on disability awareness programs to sensitize society to what it means to live life with a disability. Her message, people with disabilities can lead full, productive lives when barriers to participation are removed or minimized. Her character, Spencer, is funny, precocious, and inquisitive. He is also in a wheelchair. Jan hand sculpted Spencer herself. Her focus has been disability awareness programs in schools. She remains affiliated with IMPACT in Illinois and is a performing artist with Young Audiences in the greater St. Louis, Missouri, area. In addition to her work locally, she travels throughout the country performing for various audiences, including national meetings of the United Auto Workers, AFL-CIO, University student leadership organizations, United Way Community Liaisons, and various service clubs and organizations.