Ventriloquist David Pendleton used four wooden dummies, including one dressed like his grandmother, to teach gospel lessons to about 300 students at the Thomas Building last night.

"To be politically correct, they aren't dummies. They're wooden Americans," Pendleton said as he uncased a man dressed in a tuxedo and red bow tie.

Pendleton also used dummies shaped like a bird and a dog. With each character, he used distinct voices and joked about different aspects of life. With his dummy named "Aunt Tilly," Pendleton bantered about aging.

"I have furniture disease," he said without moving his lips. "My chest dropped into my drawers."

Throughout the performance, he moved the dummies' mouths, eyebrows and hands. Each character sang, coughed and cleared its throat during the show.

In addition to speaking without moving lips, Pendleton said ventriloquists need good performance skills.

"A performer has to create believable dialogue with the characters and manipulate the dummy in a believable way," he said.

Pendleton said he started ventriloquism at age 6 and learned from an old record in his grandmother's attic. Today, he performs for corporate events, churches, college campuses and prisons across the country.

"My most memorable performance was for inmates on death row," Pendleton said. "It was a very intimidating atmosphere, but I got a good response from the inmates."

The Campus Crusade for Christ (CRU) sponsored the event and saw the show as a way of bringing more students into their ministry, said Katie Quinn (sophomore-chemical engineering), who helped organize the show.

"This kind of event is a way of not being invasive about teaching about the Bible," Quinn said. "A lot of times, humor is more effective for reaching out to college students."

Some students said they were impressed by the performance.

"He sang better than I do and didn't move his lips," Stephanie Anderson (freshman-division of undergraduate studies) said.

Emily Shimp (freshman-agricultural science) said the performance was different than she thought it would be.

"I thought he was funny, but I was surprised," she said. "I was expecting humor geared more toward kids."