Step Right Up: Shrine circus makes its return to Springdale
Posted on Friday, May 9, 2008
With six others working for him, Ray Valentine Jr. did not have to make the trip from his home base of Houston to Springdale to publicize the upcoming 42nd annual Northwest Arkansas Shrine Circus at Parsons Stadium.
He chose to.
Valentine's circus company, which he runs with his dad, Ray Sr., visits about 240 cities a year during a stretch that runs from mid-January to early November. Out of all those stops, Valentine Jr. does the promotions personally for only two cities: Corpus Christi, Texas; and Springdale.
"I do this because Springdale is very important to my father and me,"Valentine Jr. said. "I've worked here for so many years."
While standing in the Starbucks Coffee off of College Avenue in Fayetteville, Valentine Jr. told about his earliest memories coming to Springdale as a child for the first time in 1966 as a fifth-generation flying trapeze aerialist.
'An incredible experience'
Following his father, a famous entertainer who was featured in Cecil B. DeMille's "The Greatest Show on Earth"in 1952, the now 50-year-old Valentine Jr. began his career defying gravity in 1963. He quit the profession in 2000 to focus on producing his own show.
"I was 42 years old. They don't want to see me up there in tights anymore,"Valentine Jr. said with a chuckle.
Besides carrying away crate loads of memories, Valentine Jr. also took the scars and disfigurations of 28 broken bones, two ruptured Achilles tendons, a fractured skull and a pair of crushed cheek bones with him into the front office. With no regrets.
"It's an incredible experience because you're doing something that only a select few people in the world can actually do,"Valentine Jr. said. "If you're a very good trapeze aerialist, it's like the child who's a great piano player. Some people have a gift or an ability to do certain things.
"At the same time that feeling of accomplishment defies pain and serious injury every single show. It's for adrenaline junkies. It is a dangerous thing to do. You have to be in love with it and the risks that go along with it to do it."
That rush is still felt by the 12 acts who will look to amaze audience members such as animal trainer Brian Franzen and his highly trained elephants and tigers.
Both Valentine Jr. and Jim Carlson, who has served as the circus chairman for the past eight years, said the elephants seem to be the biggest draw after all these years.
"You can see how well-orchestrated and harmonized the performance is with the trainer and the animals,"Valentine Jr. said.
"I would say the tigers come in there awfully close to the elephants,"Carlson added in terms of popularity.
Carlson added that the event featuring motorcyclists flying around in a steel cage appeals to teenagers the most. He said that the times for the children's elephant rides have been expanded this year, running from 1 p.m. to the start of the 2:30 p.m. show and from 6 p.m. to the beginning of the 7:30 p.m. performance. Rides will also be available during the intermissions of both shows.
All for the kids
The circus acts as the main fund-raiser for the Northwest Arkansas Shrine Club, an affiliate of the Little Rock-based Scimitar Shrine. Last year, after a total of 15,000 patrons attended the two shows, the club was able to raise close to $12,000 to help send area children to various Shriners Hospitals for Children throughout the country, Carlson said.
Through other fund-raising efforts such as the annual Vidalia onion sale, which recently started at locations in Fayetteville, Springdale, Bella Vista and Rogers, the club was able to raise about $20,000 to treat 207 children in Washington, Benton, Carroll and Madison counties. Maladies such as severe burns, cleft pallets, spinal problems and orthopedic issues are treated at various hospital in places like St. Louis; Chicago; Galveston, Texas; and Shreveport, La. Those children covered can range from newborn to 18 years old. Following a short application, the Shriners take care of all expenses including the necessary transportation and hotel costs for the family.
"You can be a rich person and go to Shrine Hospital or you can be dirt-poor,"said Floyd Buffington, the club's assistant rabban, which is third in command, who will become the club's leader as potentate in 2010. "We don't look at that. We don't look at color, creed, anything. We just go to help the kid."
To make the event as child-friendly as possible, the local Shriners have donated 21,500 tickets to area grade schools. The tickets, which admit anyone who is 12 or younger for free, are also available at participating businesses.
By taking away any additional costs for children, the Shriners hope to have designed an event specifically for families, so like the circus itself, they can start their own tradition.
"I would encourage people to do their part to keep Shrine Circus alive in America in a time when it's so easy for parents to buy a child a video game and let them sit in their room for four hours. Get them out of the house and into the sunshine,"Valentine Jr. said. "Take the entire family. Do something together. In this day and age, we are so separated and dislocated from our families because everybody has an agenda. It's a Saturday. Celebrate your family."
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