Back in the day, the Independence Mall – now the Kingston Collection – was such a great place to be! They used to release a newsletter called “S’Mall Talk” and I was featured in it for doing a show during April Vacation. I have told stories at the mall many times and I have to say, this was probably my favorite time.

Macy’s lasted the longest at the Kingston Collection as an anchor store. During it’s time, I took part in their event “Shop for a Cause” for many years. It was interesting as they usually placed me in the walkway outside of the children’s department. Makes sense, right? Except that the intimate apparel section was on the other side of that walkway.

So, I was telling my tall tales between kid’s clothes and lingerie!

This was a visit to my actual elementary school – the one I was a student in all those years ago! I was trying out a new story called Pumpkinstein – one that I have since retired. It wasn’t that it didn’t totally work, honestly it was more the run time of the story. My longest story is ‘Timmy” which runs 20+ minutes and is meant for older elementary kids. Pumpkinstein ran about 35 minutes and was geared to a younger audience.

No amount of editing could fix it, even though I remember these children enjoying the story, it was just too long and too much story. Thank you to 2001 Ms. Lacava for allowing me to test out my new material!

I was blessed to be the inhouse entertainer for over a decade for the George Mitchell Elementary School for over a decade! I still miss going to this school and hope to get to go back in the future!

This was an illustration done by the art teacher, Mr. P, when he was still a 3rd grade teacher. I loved being able to visit for a week, seeing the same teachers year after year, and catching up with friends.

Just a day after Old Colony posted the first picture of me, the Halifax Reporter then gave me a glorious front-page pic and even, finally, attributed me with Big Ryan’s Tall Tales! Love this pic, love this moment! I love it even more reliving it 22 years later! I still remember this day and even that moment. I still visit this library almost yearly and look forward to it every time!

Even though Big Ryan’s Tall Tales still didn’t get mentioned, I have to forgive the Old Colony Memorial as they gave me this huge, adorable picture on page 2! 2003 was a year of firsts as this is the first time I have a picture of me doing my craft in the paper!

This also shares a photo of the early days when I used a large golden retriever pup named Max (which I still have). Max was retired as he doesn’t fit easily into a backpack. I will say that I did love using the puppet, which was a gift from my brother and sister-in-law, but being so big and clunky made him difficult to transport.

I can’t believe I was just 24 when I decided to start this amazing journey! I still have clippings of the first ever mentions of Big Ryan in newspaper clippings from 2001 and 2002. I had been storytelling for just over a year when Big Ryan was first published in a paper.

As you can see, the first few mentions didn’t understand the full title “Big Ryan’s Tall Tales” but believe me, back then I was just happy to be mentioned at all! I figured being called “Big Ryan the Storyteller” was better than not being called anything.

I will be posting quite a few gems from the past throughout the year to celebrate 25 years of being Big Ryan’s Tall Tales – so keep coming back to check it out!

A shoutout to my son’s school for allowing me to come and tell some tales at the end of the year last year! He is the one on the crowd in the orange shirt. We took a nice photo after:

They did a superb job of socially distancing the kids and still allowing the kiddos to have a great time! This coming year he is looking forward 2nd grade and I will look forward to hopefully telling more tales to his class!

I remember telling my tales at Little Red School House back in the day. It was a great time where I could try out new stories and the kiddos would give me honest feedback. Not always the most constructive, but very, very honest.

The time I was reading Holes to my mother’s kindergarten class. I think this goes back to 2001-2002. My fashion sense is totally on fleek!