Yes, Sue is a Pirates... and a scarecrow and ... By BECKY CAIRNS Standard-Examiner staff bcairns@standard.net Ever swashbuckled with a pirate or splashed a mermaid in the sea? Maybe you've escaped your daily routine long enough to shake hands with a knight in shining armor or get scared to death by a headless horseman roaming wild at night. If any of these things have happened to you during the past year, thank Sue Bodily, the organizing force behind such popular local events as the recent Utah Pirate Festival, the upcoming Sleepy Millcreek Hollow and the annual Utah Renaissance Festival and Fantasy Faire. By day, Bodily toils as a clerk for the Internal Revenue Service, but by night, or on weekends, she plays at re-creating the worlds of medieval lords and ladies or spooky characters lurking in the woods. Of course, this "play" requires plenty of work, too, rousting out jousters and mermaids and scarecrows and the like, but for Bodily, it's time well spent. "I just enjoy seeing people have a lot of fun," says the co-owner of the Utah Renaissance and Fantasy Faire, which sponsors the community events. Yet it goes beyond simple entertainment for Bodily, who grew up in Marriott-Slaterville as the daughter of a history professor. Learning about the ways people lived in eras gone by is an important component of her festivals. Children might "meet" someone like Henry VIII and discover he isn't a character from a book or movie but a real flesh-and-blood person, Bodily says. Or they may learn how folks baked bread 500 years ago, instead of buying it at the store, or harnessed up a horse to travel, instead of just jumping in a car. "That brings history to life," she says. Meet Ms. O'Malley Bodily — ever in the spirit of things herself — roamed the grounds of the recent Utah Pirate Festival at Willard Bay State Park's South Marina outfitted in black pants, shirt and knee-high boots, with a jaunty brown pirate hat atop her long brown hair. "I've actually been impersonating Grace O'Malley, who was the (real) Irish Pirate Queen," she says. As for celebrating pirates in landlocked Utah, of all places, Bodily explains, "We don't have an ocean — let's broaden our horizons, let's learn about stuff that maybe doesn't affect us." The Utah Pirate Festival is the newest of Bodily's community events, marking its second anniversary in September. The first gathering was the Utah Renaissance Festival and Fantasy Fair in 2006, followed by the Hallow- een-themed Sleepy Millcreek Hollow in 2008. Haunted houses run deep in this native Utahn's blood. Bodily was one of the folks who started the old Rocky Point Haunted House in Pleasant View, and later, she enjoyed spooking at Maniac Manor in downtown Ogden. "I guess it's a sick and twisted person that enjoys watching somebody run," says the mother of a teenage son. Despite her current involvement with theatrical-type events, Bodily says science was her main interest as a student at Weber High School. "I never took drama when I was in school, so I had to become a clown as an adult," she says. More than games This organizer bills herself as the "chief scarecrow" at Sleepy Millcreek Hollow, and last May, she played the role of Margaret Tudor, sister of Henry VIII, at the Renaissance festival. But generally, Bodily says, she dives into each event wherever help is needed. "I've done everything from park cars to work in the ticket booth," she says. Besides offering entertain ment, the festivals play a role in supporting the area's small businesses, Bodily says. Vendors have j the chance to create everything from handmade stainless steel roses to deep-fried Twinkies or authentic pirate "grub" — and can earn a side income to help out in today's tough economic times, she says. Bodily says the community events also give people a place to stretch and exercise their creativity. At this year's Renaissance festival, for instance, one participant took on the challenge of creating a new "mud show," dubbed "The Merry Maids of Mudhem." 218