JANUARY 12, 2018, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A7
MAGIC,
continued from Page A1
The following year, Keaton
wanted to be an elephant and
Ryan and his wife Lana crafted
a paper maché elephant that
enshrouded the chair as well.
The process continued and
included crafting costumes for
and another son, Bryce. Ke-
aton and Bryce kept coming
up with challenges and Ryan
and Lana had to keep fi guring
out how to meet them.
A decade later, in 2015,
Magic Wheelchair, an non-
profi t creating some of the
most elaborate costumes imag-
inable for youth in wheel-
chairs, came into existence.
Many of the custom creations
have made their way into the
Keizer Iris Festival parade, but
Magic Wheelchair is now a na-
tionwide phenomenon.
The costume that put Ryan
and his family and their cre-
ations into the bigger spotlight
was Toothless, a dragon from
the movie How to Train Your
Dragon. It was Keaton’s wish
for Halloween 2015. The prob-
lem was it required Ryan to up
his game yet again.
He found the solution in
the Stan Winston School of
Character Arts, which offered
online video lessons. Winston
is the creator behind some of
the most memorable character
designs in Hollywood includ-
ing for the fi lms Terminator,
Alien, Predator, Edward Scis-
sorhands and the dinosaurs of
the early Jurassic Park fi lms.
“I had signed up for their
classes to get ideas for the cos-
tumes and I saw a foam fabri-
cator, Ted Haines, build a giant
T-Rex head. I knew as soon as
I saw it that was how I had to
build Toothless,” Ryan said.
At the same time Ryan was
crafting the Toothless plans, he
was getting help from a friend
at his church, who was study-
ing non-profi t law, to launch
Magic Wheelchair as its own
entity. Toothless was going to
be the project used to launch a
Kickstarter campaign to estab-
lish the organization.
There was only one, small
problem. Ryan couldn’t fi gure
out how to procure the foam
to make Toothless. He sent
an email to Winston’s school
about what he hoped to do and
Winston’s son and son-and-
law, Matt and Eric, responded
with a personal message.
“It included a refund for all
the courses I had already paid
for and a lifetime membership
in the future” as well as an of-
fer to help him get the foam
needed for Toothless.
The Kickstarter campaign
that launched Magic Wheel-
chair asked for $15,000 and
ended up amassing more than
$25,000 in donations. As an
organization, Magic Wheel-
chair assembles the teams to
make the costumes and takes
in applications from both kids
and volunteers via its website,
www.magicwheelchair.org.
The fi rst year, teams of vol-
unteer builders constructed
costumes for fi ve kids in Or-
egon and two in Georgia,
which were taken on by a high
school class in Gwinnett, Ga.
In 2016, Magic Wheelchair as-
sembled 25 costumes. Last year,
50 costumes were created for
free for families with youth in
wheelchairs.
“This year, I want to do 100,
and the board thinks I’m crazy,
but that’s what they’ve said ev-
ery year,” said Ryan.
A single costume can take
anywhere between 200 and
400 hours to build and cost
around $1,500.
As the idea caught fi re,
Ryan and others quickly real-
ized that Halloween wasn’t the
only time of year kids could go
out and make their mark on
the people they met. Comic
book and pop culture conven-
Ask Mr. Trash
Q. Is it true that I can put all food waste into
the big green Mixed Organics cart?
ABOVE: A
Star Wars
speeder
bike crafted
by a Magic
Wheel-
chair team.
RIGHT: Bryce
Wiemer’s
mining
ship from
the movie
Guardians of
the Galaxy.
KEIZERTIMES/
Eric A. Howald
tions, where many attendants
dress up as their favorite char-
acters, were a perfect place for
Magic Wheelchair.
In 2016, the group made
one of their most important
connections to date – Cassie
Husdon. Cassie is a fan of
the show Arrow, featuring the
character Green Arrow, and
wanted something that would
fi t in with the look of the
production. The builders as-
sembled a trike costume that
almost completely disguises
Cassie’s wheelchair and in-
cluded exhaust pipes and a
working motor that rumbled
the costume so she could get
a feel for what it would be like
in real life. They presented it to
her at Rose City Comic Con
in 2016.
Ryan didn’t realize just how
much the gift meant until he
invited Cassie to be part of a
panel at another convention
later on.
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“We gave her a costume
at a period of time when she
started realizing how different
she was and she was struggling
with depression,” Ryan said.
“After we gave her the cos-
tume, the doctors then told her
whatever you are doing keep
doing it. The Arrow costume
became an entrée into the
larger fandom of the show.”
Cassie and her mother now
build her own costumes.
Magic Wheelchair has gone
on to become a highlight of
some of the biggest pop cul-
ture conventions in the world.
Last year, the teams produced
an entire set of Justice League
costumes for San Diego Com-
ic Con and, this year, a Star
Wars-themed set of builds is
already in the works.
Last week, the organization
won an online voting contest
that will result in a 3D printer
from Re:3D. Ryan hopes it
will lead to building kits that
can be shipped anywhere to
kids in wheelchairs.
“The cold reality is that
some of the kids won’t be
around as long as others and
we want to cram as much epic-
ness as we can into the time we
have with them,” said Ryan,
who is also a full-time nurse.
While it’s easy to get swept
up in all the hoopla Magic
Wheelchair inspires, this story
is still very much about Ryan
and his family.
“The boys still get really
excited for Halloween,” said
Lana. “And it’s a big deal that
they’ve gotten to see other kids
get costumes.”
Bryce’s favorite costume so
far is a mining ship from the
movie Guardians of the Galaxy.
For Keaton, it’s a tie between
Toothless and a later creation
known as Indominus Rex.
Keaton also designed the char-
acter Ryan is working on for
next Halloween.
“I feel more included in
things (because of the cos-
tumes),” said Keaton. “They are
awesome to ride around in and
it’s really awesome to see the
expressions on other kids faces
when they get their costumes.”
Asked what he wanted oth-
er people to know about Mag-
ic Wheelchair, Keaton doesn’t
miss a beat.
“That it’s awesome,” he said.
“It’s just awesome.”