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Corporate guy has an extreme makeover
Larry Daugherty has taken two leaps of faith in his life. In 1981, he left college and headed out West to become an actor. Then a few years ago, he left a nearly six-figure advertising job to become a clown.
Yes - big, red nose, suspenders, rosy cheeks and all.
It was as difficult as you would imagine a leap in size-23 clown shoes would be. But just as he did as an untrained wannabe actor, he worked. And he worked harder.
"I feel like I've been given a gift, not just as an entertainer, but to be a teacher," he said.
At Clark Elementary School's end-of-the-year festival, Daugherty, performing as "Chippie Carmichael," opened with a few silly jokes. After he warmed up to the kids by performing "magic," they were giggling incessantly, their eyes locked on Chippie. He then started to skillfully slip in mentions of manners, how to deal with bullies and the importance of learning to read.
"There are a lot of people out there who can do magic tricks or juggle," Daugherty said. "I'm not interested in just doing that.
I believe with children, you can entertain them, take them from their daily stresses and also, unbeknownst to them, teach them a thing or two."
In a sense, he takes them out of reality to give them a dose of reality. Just as he did for himself.
Children now, Daugherty said, "have incredible stresses in their lives. It's nothing like it was when I was a kid. Kids need a getaway from worrying about homework, bullies on the bus. But I try to teach them, through silly tricks and jokes, how they can lessen that stress."
Go West, young man
After leaving Northeastern State University in 1978, Daugherty headed to Oklahoma State University to study acting; he was bitten by the bug. A week after school was out that semester, he headed to California.
"I showed up at Warner Bros. Studio in Burbank like I'd just fallen off the turnip wagon, pretty raw from Oklahoma," Daugherty said. "At the gate, they basically said, 'run along.' "
So Daugherty parked his car and did what anyone else would do. He grabbed onto the vines and climbed the walls of the lot.
"I literally dropped onto the set of 'Annie,' " he said. "Carol Burnett was there, Tim Curry, Bernadette Peters."
Peters sat down next to him and Daugherty recalls, "She said something like, 'So you drove all the way here from Oklahoma?' We talked for a while, then she called her acting coach, David Legrant, to see if he'd take me in his class."
Within a month, Daugherty landed his first national commercial for Best Western Hotels, Motels and Motor Inns.
"I was very fortunate, it all just fell into place," he said. "I got to work with, stars like Tom Hanks ("Bachelor Party"), Michael J. Fox ("Teen Wolf"), and James Earl Jones. It was a great place to be in your 20s."
Sweet home Oklahoma
Daugherty came back to OSU, got a degree in journalism and broadcasting and eventually became the advertising and brand manager for the Cherokee Nation.
"It was incredibly stressful," he said. "We knew the Hard Rock (Hotel and Casino) was coming and we were busy re-branding everything."
He was respected and put in many hours a week for one of the largest companies in Oklahoma.
So on "Take Your Kid to Work Day," Daugherty dragged along his son Mackenzie, who was 7 years old at the time.
"I left him in the office while I went to a pretty intense meeting," Daugherty said. "When I returned, he had erased my dry-erase board, which was my livelihood. I planned everything on that thing. 
"And right there in the middle was a pointy-eared devil with gnashing teeth. He told me it was 'Mad Dad.'
Daugherty was crushed.
"I said, 'Hey, buddy. I'm not Mad Dad, I'm Super Dad,' " he recalled.
Mackenzie wouldn't have any of it. "You used to play soccer with me, but now you're just mad all the time."
Daugherty went home looking for sympathy from his wife. And, boy, was she blunt.
"She was like, I hate to burst your bubble, Super Dad, but you're a pretty miserable guy to be around anymore."
Daugherty went from honing his creativity as a performer to being a frazzled, overworked executive.
He researched stress techniques to fix it, and then began teaching stress management courses at Cherokee Nation headquarters.
"It's then that I figured out what I was meant to do," he said.
Clowning around
Laughter is the best medicine, right?
"It's like this: When you were a kid and thought about what you wanted to be when you grew up, and compare it to how you are spending your time now, what do you see?" Daugherty said.
He wanted to perform. So he quit his job and put back money to launch his entertainment venture and become a professional clown.
"But it wasn't enough, I went from almost making six-figures to nothing," he said.
To that point, everything in his life - from living the dream in Hollywood to a successful advertising career - had been pretty great.
Then he was faced with the reality of his new business collapsing before it even started.
"When we were struggling, we had to cut out things like movies and eating out, and the thing that saved my family is that we had our YMCA membership," he said. "They really helped us with the cost and gave our kids a place to be kids. Kids shouldn't have to suffer because Dad has money issues or a crisis."
Watching Daugherty perform magic tricks for kids at Clark Elementary, it's clear from the pleased looks on the parents' faces that the only issue he may have now is finding a way to clone his clown act.
"The art of the clowning is thousands of years old, dating back to the Egyptians; Indian tribes to Laurel and Hardy, to Kramer from 'Seinfeld,' " he said.
"It's more than balloon animals and bad jokes. Anyone can do that. It's about transporting people - kids, adults - into a world where they can laugh and be swept away from life's pressures."
This feature has been edited from the
original article published in the Tulsa World.