Jan and Jamie MaGirl will portray Mina and Thomas Edison in the parade. They appeared Monday at The Edison and Ford Winter Estates for a celebration of what would have been the inventor's 166th birthday. / Sarah Coward/The News-Press
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Thomas Edison, himself, will appear in Saturday’s Edison Festival of Light Grand Parade.
Or the next best thing, anyway.
Jamie MaGirl portrays the great inventor daily at the Edison & Ford Winter Estates – complete with lab coat, vest and black bow tie. He even has the bushy white eyebrows.
“I give tours of the laboratory,” says MaGirl, 73, of Cape Coral. “I don’t try to do his voice, though. I’m not sure what his voice really sounded like.
“But Thomas Edison was deaf in his later years. So sometimes I pretend like I can’t hear people – especially if they ask me a question I don’t know!”
MaGirl and his wife Jan – who portrays Edison’s wife, Mina, for tour groups at The Estates – will wave from a 1926 Model T car in the parade.
By Charles Runnells, crunnells@news-press.com
