Baker making a career in restaurants
By Bobby Warren

Most magicians get their start from a father or grandfather who shows him a simple effect, and the magic bug bites. For Columbus, Ohio-area magician Carroll Baker, he got his start as a six-year-old after spending a day with Harry Blackstone Jr.

Baker won a magic contest, which earned him the opportunity to carry Blackstone's bag of tricks as the legendary performer entertained children in what is now known as Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus. Baker said he knew then he wanted to be a magician.

“I was fascinated with magic,” Baker said. “You could tell by the way people treated him that he was special. At the end of the day, I knew I wanted to be like that.”

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King finds ways to stay busy in Amish Country
By Bobby Warren

If Kevin King thought coming back to his Midwest roots would help him slow his life down just a little bit, then he was mistaken. Since returning to the Wooster, Ohio, area, King has been performing in a variety of venues, whether college campuses, summer festivals, or intimate settings.

King has helped put magic back on the map in Wooster and Wayne County, a city about 60 miles southwest of Cleveland, just like he did as an up-and-coming magician when he was a teenager at West Holmes High School in Millersburg, Ohio, a town nestled in Amish Country, about 20 miles south of Wooster.

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Please help us to post deaths in a timely manner.   

The Broken Wand section of the IBM Portal and The Linking Ring is: (1) to pay tribute to magicians who have died, (2) to notify friends of the deaths, and (3) to archive those obituaries for historical purposes. People honored do not need to be I.B.M. members.

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    People to thank for great convention.

    by Dennis Schick

Even though "Thank you notes" aren't in fashion any more, your mama still would tell you to send them to people who have done something nice for you. Now she probably didn't (or doesn't) know anything about "Thank you e-mails" -- and we don't know what Miss Manners says about them -- but still, a lot of people should be thanked for the recently-completed IBM Annual Convention, however you send them.

     If you have never worked on a major event like an international convention, you have no idea of all the time and effort that hundreds -- yes hundreds -- of people put in to pull off a five day convention. It's nearly a year-long effort. At this year's convention, for instance, many commitments were made by advertisers, dealers, and performers for next year. Many magicians registered for next year's convention in Dallas, as well. And the hotel for next year -- The Sheraton Dallas -- was reserved a long time ago.

     But back to this year. All the things which people did for this year's affair are often called "thank-less" jobs.  But they won't be thankless if YOU and others take the time to thank those people responsible. So here's the list. At least we can thank them publicly.

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