Santa Ken Ray, Instructor

We’ve all heard the phrase, “Jack of all trades; Master of none.” That very much describes our own “Elf of all trades; Master of some,” Ken Kringle. Ken’s love of performing started in his parent’s living room where he created magic shows and dance routines and all manner of entertainment. He moved on from there once he joined the Air Force where he toured the country entertaining the airmen at various Air Force bases. He was the group's country music singer as well as performing his M.C. duties and stand-up comedy routines. When he wasn’t on tour, he worked as a singing telegram messenger for a nationally known service and performed as various other characters as needed. He first donned the white beard back in 1981 as he performed “Santa Grams” in and around San Antonio, Texas. That was a far cry from the professionally trained Santa that he is today.   

From there, Ken graduated from the Columbia School of Broadcasting and worked as Cody Stephens, a country music DJ. When he wasn’t on air, he performed as Stingray the DJ at various events in and around Atlanta, Georgia. He honed his puppetry skills with a Christian Ministry and loves bringing inanimate objects to life. He now has a vast array of puppets that he uses to enhance his Christmas performances as well as performing at the Children’s Theatre at the Cotton Fair each October.   

In his “real” job, Ken is a Distribution Systems Engineer and is working to implement various robotic offerings in the distribution industry. In this capacity, Ken has been a speaker at Modex held in Atlanta, Georgia, the CSCMP Edge Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, and was a guest speaker for Signify’s SEC in Madrid, Spain.

With this widely diverse background, Ken was able to hone his Santa persona rather quickly once he was called to be Santa by a precious special needs girl, that he had a chance encounter with while he was in character as Santa’s brother. In that moment, this young girl gave him Santa. Ken immediately followed that calling and promptly attended the next session at Northern Lights Santa Academy. It took him several weeks to decompress from that first school session and he knew that from there on, being the best Santa he could be for the children was going to be his focus. Even though he wishes he could be Santa for every child in the country, he knows that’s not possible. But, by helping other Santas be the best that they can be, he feels he can indirectly spread the hope, love and joy for Christmas by making sure every Santa performs their best.  

We are proud to welcome Santa Ken to our team of instructors this session!