To find out more about Amy – including a schedule of her upcoming appearances – visit www.amybeckham.com.

A real stand-up runner!

AIR’s Dr. Amy Beckham may be the only optometrist/comedian working, and running, today

By Ed Hardee 

   You might say Dr. Amy Beckham has an eye for comedy – and running.

   She wouldn’t say that, because she wouldn’t tell such a lame joke. But Amy may be the only professional optometrist/comedian working in this country today. And she’s an Amelia Island Runner, recently taking first overall in AIR’s Reindeer Run 10K.
     “I tell people I started running in Memphis, Tenn., which is a pretty bad town,”  Amy says, mingling her life story with her comedy routine. “It’s pretty dirty and pretty scary. So if you’re ever looking to start running and you want to lose some weight quick, I say, go to a bad neighborhood. I slowed down when I moved here because there was nothin’  to run from!”

    Optometry and stand-up comedy may not seem to go together, but Amy’s passion for both goes back to her childhood. “I’m real nearsighted, so I always wanted to be an optometrist,” she says. “I decided on it when I was in first or second grade” while growing up in Augusta, Ga.

    “And I’ve always been kind of funny. When I was in fifth or sixth grade they took a vote in my class on what they thought people would be when they grew up. Mine was either president of the United States or a stand-up comedian. And I remember thinking, I don’t want to be president, then I could get shot! It sounds like a hard job!”

     So, optometry school in Memphis it was, after undergraduate work at the University of Georgia. She moved here in 2001 and has been practicing optometry for four years, the last two at the Super Wal-Mart in Yulee, where she leases office space. Not having to maintain a lab to make glasses – Wal-Mart can take care of that – and having a practice close to her Amelia Island home frees up just enough time for that second childhood passion.

    “I started doing comedy the week after I took this office. I said, well, it’s now or never….  I’m gonna talk to one of these comedy clubs and see if I can learn how to do it.” She   auditioned for the owner of the Comedy Zone in Mandarin and started doing Monday night open-mic shows.

    She did well.  Then: “It’s just like with anything, you get up and do well and you say, that was great. I must get better.”

   Unlike runners, comedians take more time as their skills improve – and Amy’s stand-up gigs quickly grew from 3 minutes to 10 or 15. A few months ago she started emceeing shows, and now she’s becoming a “featured” comic, with up to a half-hour of material she wrote. She works at clubs around the Jacksonville area and also does corporate and church events.

    Between all that, she found time to get married last March to Bryan Bunk, owner of BKB Construction. And she also finds time to run.

   “I started running when I was 25 or 26, my third year of optometry school in Memphis,” Amy says. “I did it initially for weight reasons. When I moved here I kind of slowed down but started running more, mainly because it was flat and a little bit safer.”

     Then she tried a race – the Gator Bowl 5K on New Year’s Eve 2004 in Jacksonville – and finished third in her age group. “My husband was like, honey, you’re fast! You did good! I’ve gotten faster in the last year mostly because I’ve done a couple of those runs.”

     Running “gets me going in the morning,” Amy says. “Running is my main exercise, 5 or 6 miles, four times a week. I’ve made myself go to the gym a lot more, just to give my knees a break. I exercise almost every day.”

    It helps her feel better and stay in shape. “If my jeans start getting tighter I start kicking it up, or I’ll start doing something different at the gym. When I get on stage, I’m more confident when I’m happy with the way I look.”

     And she’ll squeeze in a local race when she can. “I never sign up for a race till the last minute because I work on Saturdays, and a lot of times it depends on what my schedule is. Whenever I win something I have to get my trophy later. I go to my race, I have all my work clothes in my gym bag, and I’ll just run straight to my car and jump in. Then I’ll shower at the Wellness Center and come to work.”

     So, what does AIR’s favorite comedic optometrist see in her future?

     “I’m working at clubs, and I’ve got a husband, and I like my day job,” Amy says.  “For me to quit this job it would have to be something big, like Saturday Night Live, some kind of huge offer if my stuff fell into somebody’s hands. That probably will never happen, but you never know. I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing and see what happens.

      “For now, I get up and do comedy somewhere several times a month. My new year’s resolution would be to start contacting some clubs within a five-hour radius of me and see if I can start traveling one weekend a month just to get different exposure. Talk to me in a year, who knows?”

     We will – and that’s no joke! 

  The life and laughs of Amy, in her own words…

   When Bryan and I got married we moved to the south end of the island. I’m the fastest runner on my little trail in the morning. On the north end I had some competition.

   I have the same people I pass every day. They walk, and they always say, SLOW DOWN! I say, ‘I’m not that fast, you’re walking! You need to go walk out in Yulee where there’re dogs wandering around without leashes on! That’ll get you moving faster!’

    I’d done a low-carb diet before, which I think is the hardest diet to stick to. I went on it and after a couple of weeks I was sitting in church and it was communion Sunday, and that little gold tray came by with those wafers, and I took one, and I was like, ‘I can’t eat this, this is a carbohydrate.’ Then I thought, ‘Well, it’s not really a carb, it’s the body of Christ!’ So I stuck it in my mouth and then I realized I was savoring it like a filet mignon.   

   A lot of times when I run I don’t think about anything. It’s probably the only time I do anything that I’m not thinking about something.

   I have three sisters and we’re all the biggest bunch of hypochondriacs. (Holds her hand to her ear and mouth, like a telephone) ‘Hey, what’s up?’ ‘I have this mole that’s changing colors. The dermatologist doesn’t think it is, but IT IS.’

   I need to keep moving, because the less I move the more I think there’s something wrong with me. If I keep doing stuff, it keeps me from worrying about things that I really shouldn’t worry about.

   My husband’s a huge deer hunter. That was another thing that led me to take the comedy job. We’d been together for a few years and I was getting my feelings hurt. He’d leave every weekend and I was thinking, ‘There’s no hobby that I have that would take up the whole weekend.’

   I remember him and a couple of the other guys say, ‘You ladies are just upset because you don’t have hobbies.’ And we were like, ‘We do have hobbies! We … well, we drink beer! And we talk! And we shop!’

   But nothing that we do goes on for the whole weekend. You can only drink so much and you’ve only got so much money for shopping before you run out! And I remember saying, ‘I talk, and I can parlay that into a hobby!’

   I didn’t tell him I was doing it for probably six weeks. He’d come back from the weekend and say, ‘What’d you do?’ And I’d say, ‘Nuthin’, just hung out with my friends.’ Mostly because I didn’t want to fail and then have to explain it.

    I don’t think there are any other optometrist comedians... not that I’m aware of, anyway. I don’t make jokes about optometry. Mainly because it’s not funny to anybody but optometrists.

    I’ve progressed real quick, which I’m happy about, but I think a lot of that has to do with my background. I’m a studier. I’m a preparer. I’ll sit down and make myself work on material for a few hours. There’s a huge difference between being funny and being able to pull off comedy. It is a commitment.

    If I make a goal I’ll usually commit to it and do my best. It’s kind of like with running, you have to look at yourself and say, ‘I can do the best that I can do. There’s probably always gonna be somebody that’s gonna beat me. But I can do the best that I can do.’ I try to take that approach with everything.
 

www.AmeliaIslandRunners.com