Doug and Heidi Scheer of Commerce Township, MI live a life cut from the pages of a fairytale. He’s a real life sorcerer and she’s a princess. Their home is a castle.
To be more precise, Doug has been a highly successful magician and school assembly show performer for over 35 years and Heidi has been a competitive beauty pageant contestant and model since her late teens.
This story starts long, long ago in a land far, far away called Romulus, MI.
“We met back in the late 80’s at metro-airport,” Heidi explains. They were both part of the Auto Show touring circuit, working for Gail and Rice Productions. Heidi was a spokesperson for GMC Truck and Doug was under contract as a magician for Chevrolet. Heidi continues, “Doug, a total stranger, walks up to me and says, ‘I hope that’s not a real fur coat.'”
“It wasn’t intended to be a pick up line,” Doug insists, “but apparently it was, and it worked, even though it took about 15 years to fully kick in.” The Scheers were married in 1996.
Today, with three adult kids, Carson (23), Gannon (22), and Ella (19), Heidi and Doug are finally able to get away from their child rearing duties and rekindle their happily ever after story.
Doug explains that now that their kids are old enough to feed themselves and not burn down the house if left alone, Heidi has become his full-time assistant and he gets to travel with her too as she fulfills her speaking obligations as the reigning Mrs. Universe TCP 2022-23.
The logistics and scheduling of their busy lives as school show performers takes place in their custom built gothic, castle style home complete with a round stone turret, steel portcullis, and 2500 lb custom built, cut glass entry door. The meshing of their two lives has become a dream come true.
The Scheers perform mainly in their home state of Michigan but also travel though nine states from Illinois to New England performing their educational assembly shows in elementary schools. Each show has a different focus but the goal is always the same: using entertainment, comedy, and audience participation to reinforce basic elementary lessons. His twelve shows can all be seen at his website, but his most in-demand shows are his three character education programs.
“Especially now, after the pandemic, teachers are seeing behavioral issues they haven’t seen too much of before,” Doug explains. “It was the lockdowns, closing of parks and theaters, and fear of being around people over the past couple of years that’s now playing out in disruptive and disrespectful behavior, especially with the youngest grades.”
Doug says that has surprisingly been good for business because his character education assembly shows teach lessons of respect from various angles. Diversity Circus teaches children to accept others regardless of similarities or differences, The Mystery of The Super Character Surprise teaches students how character traits can be used to keep bullies at bay and The Adventures of Les Trouble, PI is a conflict resolution show that outlines the steps necessary to get along with others in peaceful and respectful ways.
“These programs are actually a perfect fit for my current outreach program as well, so traveling with Doug has been a remarkable way to get out the mission and platform of the Transcontinental Pageant system,” Heidi says.
The Pledge Campaign, created by former Mrs. Universe Ltd, 2014, Sabrina Pinion, is an organization that spreads awareness on the many forms of domestic abuse and assists survivors through education and mentoring at-risk children and teens.
“After our presentation in schools, we have the students all take a pledge to use good words with the hope that they recognize the power words have to play on a person’s self-worth,” Heidi says. “As an extremely overweight and bullied child, I remember vividly how a boy at my elementary school stood up for me and told my bullies to back off and stop. That one incident was transformative in my learning to be accepted for who I was. I want kids to know that everyone goes through hard times but there are people who care and have their backs.”
And in the first 3 months of the 2022-2023 school year, the Scheers have had a chance to reach out to over 10,000 elementary students from Michigan to Long Island and down through Virginia.
“We have a lot of fun too,” Doug explains. “This is the only year to celebrate Heidi’s title so we’ve done some special and rather romantic things along the way.”
While touring through Long Island this season, the Scheers made an overnight stop at Oheka Castle in Huntington, NY, a legitimate 109,000 square foot castle completed in the early 1920’s. Visited Fonthill Castle in PA, and took in a Broadway show, Six, a pop concert story and spectacle featuring the six ex-wife queens of Henry VIII, an obvious queen themed choice.
And now that it’s a new year and schools are opening back up again, the Scheers expect even more opportunities to reach children with their messages while living happily ever after.
To reach Doug and learn more about his programs, contact him today.
To contact Heidi or schedule a speaking engagement, visit facebook.com/HeidiAnnScheer or email her at heidiascheer@gmail.com.