Christie Cox:  

On the other hand, college ruined my desire to draw and paint. I'm only just getting over it. When I heard about the Disney College Program I was outta there!! For good! Ha! Workplace My first job was at Six Flags St. Louis one summer, and I was in merchandise. I worked at the outside stand by the Robin Hood show. It wasn't terribly exciting, but what can you do. The next summer, 1998, I was what they called a 'high profile' character. What it meant was that we weren't in the entertainment department, we were in foods, but we portrayed a character to enhance the theming of different eateries around the park. Mine was Friar Tuck's turkey leg stand, and I was to portray Tilly, and english peasant. It was different, that's for sure. I got to have a costume made specifically for me, which was cool, and I could wander around the Britannia area as I pleased. Lots of times, the other characters and I would all hang out together, even though we were from different areas of the park! There was Calico Sal from a country-style quick service restaurant, Colonel Cobb from Colonel Cobb's corn on the cob stand, Tweety's Granny from the stores at the front of the park, and Van the villian from a restaurant in the DC Comics area. There was another from Miss Kitty's dinner show, and I want to say it was Miss Kitty, but I don't remember exactly. We always had a lot of fun when we got together, getting a caricature done, or making a music video.....in other words, not actually working! I applied for the Disney College Program, and went in January of 1999, for custodial at the Disney-MGM Studios front entrance! And custodial is NOT as bad as people think! You can roam around wherever you want, take mini breaks, as long as your area is clean. You don't have to worry about cash registers, and guests don't get mad at you! They do ask you stupid questions, though, like where's the Jaws ride. At the end of that college program, an audition came up for a parade starting in September, which could bring people back on another college program. I auditioned and got it, so after going back home for the summer, I came back down at the end of August for another college program, hooray! Our main gig was performing the Tapestry of Nations parade at Epcot, brought in for the millenium celebration. It was tall body puppets and drums. Boy oh boy, was that the most fun I've ever had! I was all about performing, and I picked up the parade on my days off.....I worked weeks and weeks in a row, and didn't mind a bit! All of us who were on the college program had to do something else at the beginning of the day to have enough hours. So, they pretty much slapped all of us into various quick-service restaurants. I got placed at Pure & Simple inside the Wonders of Life pavilion. It was not bad at all. Two other Tapestry people worked there as well, and I didn't have to go on register all the time, depending on parade times. Those were the best days, stocking and washing dishes and helping fill people's orders. In the afternoon it was off to Tapestry!! We did 2 parades, and it was the most exhausting thing I had done to date, but I couldn't get enough of the parade and good friends! We'd watch fireworks after work, or go swing dancing at Atlantic Dance......those times didn't last long enough! I already knew I was going to stay after the college program ended. I applied for full time and continued to pick up Tapestry until I got full time at MGM in entertainment in April 2000! Thus started my career at Disney. I've done the Voyage of the Little Mermaid show at MGM, Mulan parade at MGM, Legend of the Lion King show at Magic Kingdom, Playhouse Disney show at MGM, Disney Stars and Motor Cars parade at MGM, Pocahontas and Her Forest Friends show at Animal Kingdom, Star Wars Weekends at MGM in 2003, and walked stilts in the Mickey's Jammin' Jungle Expedition parade at Animal Kingdom. I'm always ready for the next show or parade to come along......that's vital to my happiness here: variety!