 MSU Honors Student Keeps Clowning
It's hard to give up clowning once you've awed a five-year-old with a balloon animal or made him believe a white page really turned green.
Take Colleen Muzynoski, for example. She's working on a double
major at Montana State University-Bozeman,
But Muzynoski was a clown before that, and she's not about to
sell off her grease paints or Minnie the Clown costume. Still
performing in Bozeman parades and community events, the Bozeman
native got her start as a high school student living across the
street from Pepi the Clown, also known as Don Borgeson.
Her mentor shared "tons" of clowning magazines with her and
passed along tips he'd picked up during his years of clowning. He
also helped her with magic tricks and took her along on clowning
jobs. Afterward, they'd visit McDonald's or Bozeman Deaconess
Hospital for random acts of silliness.
"Everybody loves a clown. I just fell in love with it," said
Muzynoski who soon got business cards and started booking her own
gigs. "It was great."
"You can't teach someone to be a clown," noted Pepi, an
award-winning veteran of 25 years. "You can teach them how to put
makeup on and how to dress and some of the principles of
clowning. But they need to have the capability of being a clown
themselves. Colleen had it."
Muzynoski admits she doesn't have a lot of time for clowning
these days. It takes two hours, after all, to apply her makeup,
another two to three hours to remove it and additional time to
entertain the children she loves. In the three-ring circus that
often accompanies students in their senior year, she spent much
of the fall semester traveling to medical schools. She's working
on degrees in biomed and the Honors Program. She's worked the
last two years in Charles Paden's laboratory, performing surgery
on rats and working on a research project to see if axons leave
the brain and enter the anterior pituitary. (She says research is
probably one of the top three activities that got her into
medical school).
"We always have undergraduates working in the lab, but only the
best ones, the very good ones, stick with a project for a couple
of years and overcome all the necessary problems you run into to
actually get a publishable result," said Paden, who includes
Muzynoski in that elite group.
Muzynoski plans to become a family practitioner after graduating
from MSU and then WWAMI, a regional medical program affiliated
with the University of Washington's School of Medicine. WWAMI
refers to Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho. The
daughter of Jim and Denise Muzynoski, Colleen likes the thought
of treating whole families and someday practicing in Bozeman or
Kalispell.
"I just love watching groups of people grow up, grow together,"
Muzynoski commented.
But the future doctor plans to continue her community
involvement, as well. And that, of course, includes more time
clowning around.
"Hopefully, when things slow down for me, I can pick it up a
little bit," Muzynoski said. "It's not a career, but it's
definitely an absolute, wonderful hobby. It's so great. It's the
neatest thing when you can walk into a room and make someone's
day."
Evelyn Boswell
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