From Don Covington #1

HARRISBURG — Cave Junction. Riddle. Drain. Oakridge. And on Saturday, Harrisburg Every year since 1985, these are the types of small towns that have played host to the Culpepper & Merriweather Circus, whose 30-person cast and crew (along with horses, two tigers and a lion named Francis) caravans across the country for eight straight months while putting on almost 500 shows annually. “It’s a hard way to do it, but what you get is something that has a lot of heart and soul that you don’t see with a bigger show,” circus clown Nathan Holguin said, speaking from experience. Before he joined the Hugo, Okla.-based circus as Punchy the clown, the 40-year-old Holguin played Madison Square Garden and other major-league venues while performing with the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus — the self-proclaimed “Greatest Show on Earth.” “That’s fun, too, but this has a different kind of charm,” Holguin said. Years ago, traveling “mud show” circuses regularly pitched tents in Harrisburg and put on shows for the locals. That ended sometime around 1970, and the riverside city in Linn County went about four decades without a circus visit. In 2011, local officials got Culpepper & Merriweather to schedule a stop there. A few hundred people attended those shows, and the troupe returned Saturday for a pair of performances that helped raise money for the Harrisburg Elementary School Parent Club and the Harrisburg Library Guild. “It’s a really neat thing for the community,” City Administrator Bruce Cleeton said. Cleeton and his family stood among the 40 or so people who showed up early Saturday morning to watch a team of circus workers hustle to drive stakes into the ground before methodically putting up Culpepper & Merriweather’s red, white and blue striped tent in a gravel lot across Smith Street from Heritage Park. About half of those who witnessed the lot being transformed into the circus grounds were children, most of whom appeared fascinated with the show’s tigers and lion. “I came to see those big tigers,” Abe Noll, 6, said before announcing through a toothy grin that he had $21 to spend on cotton candy and other treats from the circus midway. Braeden Hafeman, 5, of Eugene, said he was looking forward to seeing Francis the lion “eat a steak.” The lion, which sat calmly in its cage before Saturday’s shows, is “abso-frickin’-lutely” the circus’s star, general manager and lion handler Trey Key said. Youngsters typically go into the circus most interested in seeing the exotic animals perform, Key said. But afterward, “probably only one in four say it’s the cats that were their favorite part,” he said. Each 90-minute show offers a variety of traditional circus acts, from clowns and animals to trapeze artists, a juggler and a family of unicycle riders. It’s old-fashioned family entertainment, and it’s one of just a few small-time circuses left in the country. “This show is sort of a dying breed,” Holguin said. “The way we’re doing it is the way it’s always been done. We’re traveling seven days a week, doing something low-tech and real. I think that’s pretty cool, and I know it appeals to a lot of people who see this show.”