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Don’t dare be caught without a smile on your face today
By LINDA M. LINONIS
SEVILLE
Joyce Crislip, a smile ambassador, takes her assignment of promoting World Smile Day seriously. She was asked by Harvey Ball, the man who designed the smiley face in 1963, to be the Ohio ambassador for his project, World Smile Day.
Crislip, who lives in Seville, west of Akron, said she wrote to Ball, who lived in Worcester, Mass., about how she used the smiley face in her work as a teacher. “We developed a rapport, and he asked me to publicize the event,” she said.
World Smile Day is today.
It was another emotion that led Crislip to this volunteer effort. In 1973, she was coping with depression. “I saw a smiley face and the phrase ‘Smile, God Loves You’ in a pamphlet,” Crislip said. For some reason, she said that message and smiley face helped change her mood. So much so that when she began teaching second-graders in 1975, she used a smiley face as her classroom theme. She continued it until she retired in 1998, and the face even worked with sixth-graders.
The smiley face theme “snowballed” into much more. She received gifts and trinkets imprinted with it and ended up with some 400 items. “I have a smiley room in my house,” she said, adding it’s a happy place for her grandchildren to play.
Her car license plate is OK Smile.
Crislip continues to spread the word about World Smile Day by sending out postcards to media outlets.
She also gives talks about Ball and the smiley face history to church and secular organizations and presents a display of smiley faces.
“I get a lot of positive feedback,” she said, adding she believes her audiences appreciate the positive message. S
he noted she mentions Psalm 9:2, “I will be glad and exalt in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High,” which she feels relays the message of being happy. Crislip said her service as smile ambassador is an opportunity to promote having a positive attitude.
Contact Crislip by e-mail at smilegodlovesyou@juno.com.