From Don Covington

Bill Schultz, former head of Circus World Museum, dies at 85 By BARRY ADAMS June 16, 2009 Madison, Wisconsin Bill Schultz, who helped revive the Great Circus Parade, wrestled with movie star John Wayne and helped build Madison’s two YMCA facilities, died Sunday in Manitowoc. Schultz, who was 85, was an accomplished acrobat, wrestler, boxer, racquetball and paddleball player, and was the executive director of Circus World Museum in Baraboo from 1972 until 1984. He resigned from the museum following investigations that criticized his handling of money and his management techniques. "Nobody is perfect," Schultz said at the time. "We all have things we would have done differently if we had the chance." Born in Manitowoc, Schultz attended UW-Madison and entered the Marine Corps in 1942, where he became a Marine Corps boxing and wrestling champion which led to a wrestling match with Wayne. After World War II, Schultz graduated from UW-Madison where he was a Big Ten gymnastics champion. In 1949, Schultz, whose father had a circus in Manitowoc, turned down offers to perform with the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Baily Circus to start a YMCA career, which included becoming the top executive of the Madison YMCA. While with Circus World, he helped grow the museum and in 1980, brought the Circus Parade to Baraboo and then to Chicago in 1981 and 1982. "Bill was certainly a colorful person," said Dale Williams, who worked at Circus World from 1971 to 2001 and is now site director at H.H. Bennett Studios in Wisconsin Dells. "I think Bill had a true love of the circus. He was certainly a very overt, outgoing person and a great story teller."