From Don Covington

Bohannon, originally uploaded by bucklesw1. JENNINGS - There was a time when townsfolk used to gather around the car wash to watch Micky Bohannon bathe his elephant. Other times, gawking motorists triggered traffic jams whenever Bohannon rode his camel to the local cafe and hitched it up outside. "Welcome to Jennings," as the sign says. This is where Bohannon, "world famous animal trainer," lives, the sign proudly points out. Nowadays, except for a few household pets, the 68-year-old Bohannon no longer works with animals, opting instead to live a quiet and comfortable retirement with Sandy, his wife of 45 years. But the memories of his animal-training heyday are still alive in his mind, especially those years during the 1980s when he worked as a trainer and performer with "The Greatest Show on Earth" - the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Bohannon grew up in Maury City, Tenn., and got his first taste of animal training at age 5 on the family farm. A neighbor had given him a young fox, and he taught it to do dog-style tricks. That only whet his appetite for what would become his life-long passion. As an adult, Bohannon worked a number of odd jobs, trying to stay close to animals such as taking on roles as a rodeo clown or animal caregiver. His big break came in the early 1980s when Ringling Bros. hired him on as an animal trainer. In a short time, Bohannon was carting wild and exotic animals back to Jennings, where he would train them for performances at his indoor arena near the post office. That arena became a point of curiosity for residents, who would bring out-of-town guests for a glimpse of Bohannon's menagerie of zebras, lions, bears, buffalo, camels, elephants, a rhinoceros, monkeys and llamas. Whenever he received a new animal, he would often bed down with it for days, according to his wife. "He liked animals more than people," Sandy Bohannon said. By 1987, Bohannon grew into a circus performer role by chance. After the Ringling Bros. bought a well-trained buffalo, only Bohannon could get it to perform. In his years with the circus, Bohannon traveled from coast to coast and included 63 performances at New York City's Madison Square Garden. The circus had become a family affair with his wife, son, Chris, and daughter, Deanne, joining him. They helped with performances - riding animals in shows, doubling as clowns or performing other chores. Sandy Bohannon even came to have her own act. The circus management asked her to perform a snake act, to which she initially recoiled with horror. After a handler promised to train the snake, she consented. Bohannon's circus career was cut short in 1988 when he suffered a brain injury while preparing a rhinoceros for a show. Before the performance, Bohannon leaned over the rhino, which spooked the animal. It reared its head and drove a horn into Bohannon's forehead, requiring him to be resuscitated and left him with partial paralysis, vision and speech impairments and seizures. "The circus took real good care of me. The best of hospitals, doctors, no questions asked," he said. Bohannon tried to return to the circus, but he realized it was time to hang it up. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------