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skill." "She was the only person in my family who could sew by hand, and nobody had a sewing machine. So anytime we needed anything sewn, we had to come to her to fi x it," Coy said. Her grandmother came to every event she hosted in college, and she let Coy use her home to store her costumes. Making magic Ten years later, the company now employs 40 part- time performers and has the capacity to perform almost 60 diff erent characters. Coy laughs at what the fi rst costume for the Snow Queen looked like compared to what she's tweaked and improved over time. Now, she special orders wigs and applies custom prosthetics. A costume may be handmade to spec by a craftsman in Peru, then shipped to Warner Robins – with fi nishing touches added by Coy and Suzanne Knight, her manager and right-hand woman for costuming. One thing hasn't changed – Coy still seeks to honor her grandmother's memory. "In my big room where everybody gets ready at my house, there's a big picture of her with all of our characters." As the company grows, this is a reminder to keep its cozy, homespun values. college student who was asked to play a princess for a child's birthday party. Coy said, "I desperately was looking for a kind of part-time, fl exible job to help me kind of make ends meet." Her platinum blonde hair made her a ringer for Elsa, the central character in Disney's Frozen, which was one of the year's hottest fi lms. She created a DIY Halloween costume for fun as an homage to the character, enlisting the help of her grandmother, Myrtle Harbin, who was considered the family seamstress. Snapping a casual photo of the holiday outfi t, Coy was in for a surprise: "As soon as I posted it on Facebook, I had three or four diff erent moms message me and asked if I would be interested in coming to their kids' birthday party." Coy thought this would be an interesting way to stretch her theatre background, and so it was the start of Fairytales and Friends. Of course, back in those days, Coy's capacity was limited. She was driving from college in Athens back home to Warner Robins a couple of times a month and enlisting the help of her roommate, but the requests kept coming. In the beginning, Coy's grandmother helped her make every single costume. When she envisions her role in the company, she thinks of "just the essence of her and that little bit of magic and hometown love and 48 maconmagazine.com | October/November 2024