How to go
What: The Kelly Miller Circus, a traveling circus under the Big Top.
When: Performances are 4:30 and 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 18.
Where: Bellbrook Middle School, 3600 Feedwire Road, Sugarcreek Twp.
Tickets: Advance tickets are: Adult, 12 years and older, $10; children, 2 to 11 years, $6. Tickets on show day are $15 for adults and $7 for children. Advance tickets are available at the Board of Education, 60 E. South Street, Quality Cleaners, 112 W. Franklin St.; Discount Drug Mart, 4441 W. Franklin St.; and at the BellHop Café in the downtown Bellbrook Plaza behind the Dairy Shed.
The public is invited to watch the circus elephants help set up the Big Top tent at 9 a.m. circus day. The circus trucks will start arriving on the grounds at around 7 a.m.
BELLBROOK — Carlee and Charlie, two advance clowns for Kelly Miller Circus, a traveling circus coming to town May 18, created laughter and fun for students at Stephen Bell Elementary School and Bell Creek Intermediate School on a recent Tuesday.
“I liked the part with the snakes,” said Skyla Young, who had sat cross-legged on the floor with about 170 other kindergartners to watch the first of several half-hour interactive shows.
Kindergartners Luke Lance, Rianne Lopez, Braleigh Flynn and Damien Mack were chosen to perform with the clowns, passing spinning plates from one to another on top of long sticks. Another child helped with a magic trick.
Carlee and Charlie, in real life Sherri and David Shepard, of Sarasota, Fla., began performing together in 1995, a year after Sherri, a preschool teacher for 25 years, took up clowning as a hobby. She learned all she could through classes, books and clown conventions, one of which David went to, somewhat reluctantly, he said.
“She dressed me up with makeup and all and we went down to a parade,” he said. “A little girl ran up to me and then ran back to her mom and said, ‘I hugged a clown today. I broke. She saw something in me I didn’t. From then on I was Charlie.’ ”
Carlee and Charlie became hometown clowns, doing birthday parties, visiting nursing homes, going to hospitals, etc.
“This is our first season with Kelly Miller,” Carlee said, her bright red hair and colorful costume matching Charlie’s.
As advance clowns for the circus, which hails from Hugo, Okla., they will double the 10,000 miles the circus travels each year to visit 200 cities, she said. They arrive two weeks in advance, driving a 40-foot motor home with a little clown car behind, to promote the circus, then move on before it arrives.
Their show consists of a bit of magic, juggling, and general clowning around, with spring-loaded snakes that pop out of cans and lots of bumbling and fumbling. The Shepards said they talk up the three elephants, five tigers, and four camels that will be coming, along with the clowns, circus acts and workers.
They advise people that only the advance tickets will benefit the fundraiser for the circus sponsor, the Bellbrook-Sugarcreek Education Foundation, a nonprofit fund that provides college scholarships for local graduates.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2341 or kullmer@DaytonDailyNews.com.
About the Author