NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — There are more than 40,000 members in the Opryland USA Facebook group, all sharing memories of a beloved park. A little while back, member Donna Byrd posted a question hoping to find someone.
"Shannon Schrum!" Donna told NewsChannel 5 in a Zoom call. "He was a ventriloquist at Opryland back many years ago. I tried to find him, and it had been years since I'd seen or heard from him."
A long-lost connection is now resolved for some who worked at Opryland. Watch in the player above.
We decided to catch up with Shannon and also his ventriloquist dummy, Rod.
"How do you do?" said ventriloquist dummy Rod, not moving his mouth.
"You're not moving your mouth," Shannon pointed out to Rod.
"You're not pulling the string," Rod answered.
"We're like a comedy team, like Abbott and Costello, but I'm the funny one," Rod continued.
"I started when I was five-years-old working on ventriloquism," said Shannon. "I said that's what I want to do!"
"And he's been working with dummies ever since," Rod chimed in.
By the late 80s, Shannon and Rod were roving Opryland and later performing their own show at the park.
"We played about 6,000 gigs," Rod said.
"It was a magical place," Shannon continued. "It was one of those rare places there was a high concentration of talent and creativity. It was amazing to be surrounded by that. It energized you. Inspired you."
With Opryland came connections to greats of country music. They became friends with the likes of Porter Wagoner and Minnie Pearl.
"Did you know I have an uncle who worked at the Grand Ole Opry?" Rod asked.
"Was he a musician?" Shannon responded.
"No, he was that circle of wood everybody stands on."
Since the closure of Opryland, Shannon has remained in the world of puppeteering.
"We're not on the road that much, but I do build puppets in the puppet studio," Shannon said.
He's made puppets for Dolly Parton's Imagination Library program and also created some of the stars of String City, a show long performed at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. Shannon's travels have led to a collection of treasures.
"Sherry Lewis gave me this Lamb Chop," Shannon said, showing things in his collection. "Got Minnie Pearl's hat. We worked for Hee-Haw and all of that. When the show closed down, I got the cornfield."
Shannon also owns a cast of the dummy from the 1978 Anthony Hopkins thriller, Magic, and a casting of an original Everlasting Gobstopper from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. While an interesting life has led to this space of pure imagination, Shannon said something as simple as Donna's message is rewarding.
"It really, really touched me when I saw that posting," Shannon said.
"I'm hoping to meet them again after all these years," Donna said.
"We're part of nostalgia?" Rod asked.
"Yeah."
"Wow."
"It's just such an honor to be a part of that, to be part of something people love so much," Shannon said. "It's awesome the blessings from Opryland still continue."
Fostering Hope provides Christmas for kids in foster care. I'm delighted to see Fostering Hope expand this year to expand their reach to now include kids in Foster care in metro AND foster kids in East TN hard hit by Helene.
-Bree Smith
