Weekday
The Weekly Feature Page of The University Daily Kansan
Sept. 27, 1978
Delighting children of all ages, the Franzen family of troupers ranges from Kenneth Anderson, above, 57, ticket-taking uncle of owner Wayne Franzen, to Chad Franzen, right, $1\frac{1}{2}$. Wayne's first-of-May son, who's still too young to perform.
Family Circus on the Road
Wayne Franzen, a high school dropout, quit teaching high school industrial arts in 1974 and, with financial backing from a brother, started the Franzen Bros. Circus.
He was living out the dream shared by many who have wanted to run away and join the circus.
His roustabouts and performers numbered 15 when Franzen first started the show, and today 18 persons travel with him to about 15 states every year, through mud, through Wisconsin, where the pictures were taken, through middle America, believing the show must go on.
John Marrone, a cat tamer who works with the show's lions and tigers, is also the layout man (tent boss) surveying the damage of a blow down in Delavan, Wisconsin, the first for this family-owned dog and pony she
Fred Finnicin, above, a jay and peanut right, shares a trailer with a lady, the circus bull, Oka right. When she's not helping set up the big top or performing under the big top, or giving children ride in a howdah on her bristly back, Oka grazes. She's smart enough to know that she could easily pull up the chain, but is gentle enough not to.
Photos by Randy Olson Story by John P. Tharp
The barmer gang follows the layout man who directs the stake and chain truck on the fast lot. Ohla the bull tugs on the king pole line, the lacing is secure and the big top rises around the bale ring. The show must go on.
It's a long way from 'Big Bertha' "the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Balley Combined Circus," but the Franzan Bros. Circus still manages an occasional sellout crowd, or "strawhouse," in little towns across the Midwest.
It's a family-owned and operated circles under the leadership of Wayne Franzen, 23, and Kathy Franzen, 31, who said that before she married him, Franzen told her he wanted to start his own circus—run his own show.
"I DON'T really think he would do it," she said last weekend from Atlanta, Ind.
"He had always wanted to have his show, kind of a boyhood dream, so I went along with him."
Ms. Franzen is the show's bookkeeper. Her husband is the co-owner (the general manager) and also the owner of the restaurant.
Besides Okha, a ton-and-a-half Indian elephant who helps put up the top with the traction and power of a builder, Franzen has a pair of tigers and a trio of dogs that perform for the townpeople, the "gillies."
He also trains 10 ponies, which are white with splattered black spots, and a lone trick horse that magically picks out numbers for Franzen before the bewildered eyes of children of all ages.
FRANZEN ALSO has a circus rarity: nine trained goats, who jump hurdles, walk narrow planks and take turns on a balance.
A luma rounds out the menagerie, travelling in a double-trailer with the cats rolling in a fift-wheel trailer. The ride is as cute as it is messy.
The show winters in Florida, where the performers put on local shows, and practice new acts. Fred Finnicum and Dennis Michael are joeys—every circus needs clowns. Amanda and Beatrice McMurray swing in a trapeze and spider web act. Curtis Cainan jugges and walks the wire to the beat of drums and the organ.
Franken tames the cats, and oversees everything else down. He has bitten and scratched, and his top has been binned.
"We don't want it really bigger," Mrs. Franzen said, "but better, still ten size, still good quality."
But the show, the dream, goes on for Franzen, who at the age of 10, trained a calf to do tricks. The show, like Franzen, a boy at heart, keeps growing, but not too much.
"We like to see people happy when they go out of the show."