Oral History Interview with Jim Royal

Oral History Interview

with

Jim Royal

Interview Conducted by Juliana Nykolaiszyn June 15, 2011

The “Big Top” Show Goes On: An Oral History of Occupations Inside and Outside the Canvas Circus Tent

The “Big Top” Show Goes On An Oral History of Occupations Inside and Outside the Canvas Circus Tent

Interview History

Interviewer: Juliana Nykolaiszyn Transcriber: Miranda Mackey Editors: Amy Graham, Tanya Finchum, Juliana Nykolaiszyn

The recording and transcript of this interview were processed at the Oklahoma State University Library in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

Project Detail

The “Big Top” Show Goes On: An Oral History of Occupations Inside and Outside the Canvas Circus Tent aims to preserve the voices and experiences of those involved with the work culture associated with Hugo, Oklahoma’s tent circus tradition.

Funding for this project was made possible by the Library of Congress American Folklife Center as part of a 2011 Archie Green Fellowship awarded to researchers Tanya Finchum and Juliana Nykolaiszyn with the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program at the OSU Library.

This project was approved by the Oklahoma State University Institutional Review Board on May 6, 2011.

Legal Status

Scholarly use of the recordings and transcripts of the interview with Jim Royal is unrestricted. The interview agreement was signed on June 15, 2011.

The “Big Top” Show Goes On An Oral History of Occupations Inside and Outside the Canvas Circus Tent

About Jim Royal…

Jim Royal was born in 1948 and was reared in Maywood, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Early, in his grade school days, Jim experienced his first circus and from then on was very interested in the work and world of the circus. His first summer after graduating from high school, Jim worked as a ticket-taker for the Al G. Kelly and Miller Brothers Circus. After deciding college was not for him, he rejoined the circus world in 1967 working in a sideshow. He would go on to perform as a fire-eater and as a sword swallower apprentice. He also performed magic acts and juggled.

As the Vietnam Conflict raged on, Jim joined the navy in 1967 and served four years. Then he and his wife, Beverly, developed a magic show and took it on the road for a few years before deciding to go into the circus full time. From stage manager to ringmaster to circus manager, Jim has many experiences with the circus. Around 1981, Jim and Beverly joined the Carson and Barnes Circus and moved to Hugo, Oklahoma. While with Carson and Barnes, he had the opportunity to work a fourteen week show in England which actually turned into a fourteen year stay in England and Ireland. While overseas he was ringmaster, co-owner of the Circus Star, and worked in promotions for various circuses.

When Jim and Beverly decided it was time to return to the United States, Jim was approached by the owners of Big Apple Circus in 2002. He would become the production unit manager for Big Apple and would hold that position for four years. In 2006, John Ringling North, II purchased the Kelly Miller Circus, headquartered in Hugo, and hired Jim to be the manager.

Jim continues to be the manager of the Kelly Miller Circus and he and Beverly reside in Hugo, Oklahoma.

The “Big Top” Show Goes On An Oral History of Occupations Inside and Outside the Canvas Circus Tent

Jim Royal

Oral History Interview

Interviewed by Juliana Nykolaiszyn June 15, 2011 Hugo, Oklahoma

Nykolaiszyn My name is Juliana Nykolaiszyn with the Oklahoma State University Library, Oklahoma Oral History Research Program. Today is Wednesday, June 15, 2011 and we’re in Hugo, Oklahoma, interviewing Jim Royal. Thank you very much for joining us today.

Royal My pleasure, thanks for coming down.

Nykolaiszyn Well, let’s learn a little bit more about you. Can you tell us where you were born, where you grew up?

Royal I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago in a town called Maywood, which is a western suburb of Chicago, very close to the city, in kind of a working-class neighborhood.

Nykolaiszyn And what year were you born?

Royal 1948.

Nykolaiszyn Okay.

Royal I’m a baby boomer. I’m one of the aging baby boomers.

Nykolaiszyn Well, tell me about your first circus memory, when you were younger.

Royal Well, I remember there was a circus that appeared, a tented circus, in one of the local parks that I used to go to. I remember going on the swings, and someone in a trailer came out. I don’t remember exactly what they said, but kind of like, “Hey, kid! Get out of here! What are you doing?” (Laughs) At the time, I thought, “Wait a minute! This is our park! What are you doing here?” That was kind of my initial memory of the first circus experience.

Nykolaiszyn Okay, well, as you were getting older, did you have any interactions with the circus growing up?

Royal In a remote way. My grandmother’s sister kind of ran away with the circus, so to speak. She fell in love with a circus performer, a man who is named Chief Keys, Clarence Keys. He was from Fort Towson, right near Hugo, and worked primarily with Hugo circuses. He was mostly Choctaw Indian and was a Wild West performer, a sharp shooter, a knife thrower, and she became his human target in the knife throwing act. I had never met her. I mean, they lived out here and toured all the time. I had never met her, but I later corresponded with her when I got interested in the circus.

Nykolaiszyn When you were getting interested in the circus, what were you hoping to do? Were you looking to become a performer, break into the business, or were you just naturally curious about the family history?

Royal When I was in the sixth grade or the seventh grade, I’m not sure which, I was a safety patrol boy. Years ago, you had youngsters in school who wore a white belt and helped other children cross the street safely. They took us, as a reward, to the Medinah Shrine Circus in Chicago. It was in The Loop—well, just outside of The Loop, in the city. The Medinah Temple was a beautiful, ornate old building. Marvelous old place. And at that time, the circus was produced by Polack Brothers, which had a real powerhouse of a show. We were, I think, in the third row, right there. It was an amazing circus, real high quality show. I was quite taken with it and the building, too, inside. It was very, very interesting. It just really fascinated me. I think that’s really where I got things started.

I think I’m fortunate in that I’m one of those people that, very early in life, realized what I wanted to do in life and that was it. I was set, where so many people wander around trying to find themselves, as we used to say in the ’60s, or find something that they enjoy doing for a living, but I was lucky. Not long after that, I’m in the local library browsing through the shelves and my eye was caught by a book called The Circus Kings, which is by Henry Ringling North, whose father was married to the only Ringling sister. His mother was the only Ringling sister, and his uncles were the Ringling Brothers. He and his brother ran the circus for many years, and he wrote this book, fascinating book, telling about their experiences. That really hooked me. I decided that was for me, and I always wanted to do the business side of it, the managing side of the circus.

Nykolaiszyn Did you have any early mentors, learning the business-end?

Royal Yes, I was very fortunate. When I was a sophomore in high school, a

friend of mine was kind of interested in the circus, too. I got him interested in it. He wrote to one of the circuses, Cristiani-Wallace Brothers—not a Hugo show, they were out of Sarasota, Florida—and asked if they would be in the Chicago area. They wrote him a letter and said, “Yes, we’re going to be in the Chicago area and can you get us a sponsor?” and that was all we needed to know. We were set. So we raced about and found a local organization that would be interested in sponsoring the circus. We called the circus up and they said, “Okay, we’ve got what we call a contracting agent”—in those days, an agent who booked the circus with the local communities—“named Jack LaPearl. We’re going to send Jack LaPearl out. Jack lives in Wheaton.”

Well, Wheaton is, I don’t know, twenty miles west of where I live, and we were excited because LaPearl was a famous circus name. There had been a LaPearl Circus and Jack’s brother, Harry, was married in center ring—he was a clown—in clown wardrobe, at the old Madison Square Garden in, I don’t know, 1890, or something like that. It was a big, big production. So Jack came, and Jack LaPearl at that time, I’m guessing, was maybe seventy-five, seventy-six. Spry, dapper, debonair, and charming and as fun, interesting a guy as you could possibly meet. He came out to talk to the sponsor with us and then, we would go visit him. I would go out into towns in northern Illinois, southern Wisconsin, Indiana, booking the circus with him in the wintertime. He was just wonderful company and a wonderful mentor.

Nykolaiszyn Now, was that your first job?

Royal Yes, I was still in school, of course, high school, but we were gone and booked the circus together.

Nykolaiszyn Well, take me through your early career. What happened after high school?

Royal Well, I always wanted to go every summer, and my parents said, “Are you nuts?” (Laughs) “No,” they said, “You’re too young. You shouldn’t be doing that.” So when I was eighteen they said, “Okay, you can go.” So I graduated high school on a Thursday, and Saturday morning I was on a train to Neenah, Wisconsin, where I was joining the old Al G. Kelly and Miller Brothers Circus to take a job as the ticket-taker in the summer. I did that, and I remember the first day I took the job, they had a tremendous sale. I arrived just in time to kind of get up there, about fifteen minutes before they opened the doors to the circus, and the midway was just a huge sea of people all itching to get in there, and I thought, “Wow!” It was a little bit intimidating.

So I spent that summer with the circus, and then I went to the University

of Illinois at Chicago to get my doctorate. (Laughs) I lasted four months. Chicago, this was in the fall and the wintertime, it was a new campus. It was all modern and all concrete, and it had no soul to it. It was primarily a commuter campus. And the circus, at that time, Kelly Miller for a few years, wintered in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, on the gulf coast. I’d be sitting in class at like eight in the morning or something, having driven—because I was a commuter—through traffic for forty minutes and thinking, “Oh, they’re down there in Ocean Springs and here I am, looking out the window at the wind whistling in Chicago.” So after four months, I resigned my career as a university student and rejoined the circus and this time, it was 1967. I started that year working in the sideshow. I learned to eat fire, and I was an apprentice sword swallower. I was working on it, but never really became a full-fledged sword swallower. I did magic, Punch and Judy, and did what we call a talker. A lot of people refer to him as a barker, but in the circus we always called that person the talker.

Nykolaiszyn You think of fire-eaters and sword swallowers, is it a hard performance act to learn?

Royal The biggest problem for me, seriously, was overcoming the fear of that first time of putting the fire in your mouth. There are no real tricks to it. You just have to be very cautious. You have to keep your mouth moist, you always have to exhale, you have to come at a certain angle, and things like that for the basics of it, which I just did the basics. But it is a dangerous thing. We have a man with the show that has been doing it for many, many years. He was trying a different fluid and he got burned earlier this year. As so often is the case, many circus arts are very dangerous.

Nykolaiszyn Who was teaching you the finer points of these performance acts?

Royal At that time, when I joined the circus down in Ocean Springs, I had just finished reading W.C. Fields, his Follies and Fortunes, or was it by Robert Lewis Taylor? I think it was him that did a circus book later. But anyway, there was Thomas Hart, who was the sideshow manager, and Thomas Hart was this larger than life character, a bit like W.C. Fields. He had kind of that sort of a voice. He and a guy named Charlie Roark were there. Charlie was just visiting for a few weeks of the tour, and they taught me the sideshow things.

Nykolaiszyn Take me through what happens next in your career. What happens?

Royal Well, we were there for about three months and then Thomas got an offer to go with Bob Snowden, who was a circus producer who had a show called the International Cavalcade of Stars. It was a half-circus,

half-magic show, big stage illusions. They asked me to come over there. I did a juggling act, a little basic juggling act and also, be stage manager. I did that, and we spent part of the year in buildings and part of the year in tents. It was a specially designed circus tent that held the stage as well.

Then I did that and at about this time I was getting draft notices. This was 1967 and we had that Vietnam thing going on, and I was sending in my change of address all the time, because I was moving all the time. I was kind of staying one step ahead. At the end of the season I went home, and I had been home about a week and I got another notice. This time it was for a physical. I went down for the physical, and they stamped all those papers, and they handed them to me, and they said, “You can be drafted as soon as two weeks.” I thought, “Oh!” you know, I didn’t really want to go over to Vietnam. So I joined the navy, and ended up going to Vietnam anyway, and spent four years in the navy at that point. It interrupted my career right when I was going!

Nykolaiszyn So you come back from the service…

Royal Yes, and went back and worked with the circus doing some promotional work. Just before I went into the navy, I worked for the Commonwealth Edison Company, a public utility in Chicago, just because I had ran out of money and it was wintertime. I had worked there ninety days and in those days, if you worked at a company ninety days when you went into the service, they had to give you a job when you came out. It was a union job and all of your seniority would have to go through. Then you had a hundred and twenty days after you got out of the service to decide if you wanted to go back there. I had no intention of going back, but then Tommy Hart and I, who I mentioned earlier, were going to put this show out. I went to work with him, we were doing promotions, and Thomas was getting kind of irascible, and I decided I didn’t want to go into business with him. Just the very last possible day, I went back to Edison just to make some money and put out a stage show, a magic show, I decided. There I met my wife, my future wife, and we put together a show and took it on the road then.

Nykolaiszyn Was your wife in a circus family?

Royal No. She was this person working in an office who hated boring jobs, hated office jobs. She loved being outdoors. She loved travel. She loved adventure. She loved animals. So we did the magic show for a couple of years and I said, “Let’s go back to the circus,” and she said, “Let’s do it!” She learned to be an aerialist, and she was deathly afraid of heights, I kid you not. If you ask her to step on a chair she’d be all nervous, yet she ended up doing crazy things at the top of the tent.

Nykolaiszyn Where did your career take you next?

Royal Well, we were in the circus business here in the United States. At that time I was ringmastering, and we did an escape act and a magic act. My wife did aerial acts and worked with elephants and things like that. We were doing that, and in the wintertime we would book circuses, go out and do what I had done before, contracting. Then, we were in New Jersey, 1980 I think it was, ’79-’80, something like that, and an Australian man who worked with English circuses was visiting. He had a magazine called The King Pole, which is a British circus magazine. I’d always been an Anglophile, I don’t know why. My one grandmother was from England, but she died before I was born. I don’t know if that’s the connection. He was telling us about traveling. We were doing one-day stands in America, seven days a week. He was talking about traveling with this little British circus that he worked with every year and he said, “Oh, we just play week stands and we have Mondays off. We go to bed and breakfasts, or some nice little hotel or something. We’re playing little country towns in England.” That sounded idyllic to us.

He said, “You know, you’re an American ringmaster. You could probably get a job over there.” And he had The King Pole, which at that time, was the directory issue, which is the once a year issue where they list all the different British circuses, and he gave it to me. So I contacted them all and only one expressed an interest, but they said they had nothing open. Then in 1982, out of the blue, they sent me a telegram. I was with Carson and Barnes Circus out of Hugo, and they said, “We need an American ringmaster for fourteen weeks for a summer season. Can you do it?” I went to D.R. Miller, the famous circus impresario, and I told him about it. He said, “Oh, no!”—this was our second year there. We loved it at Carson and Barnes. He said, “No, no. You’re obligated to us,” and I thought, “Well, he’s right.” So, I don’t know, fifteen minutes later he comes by and he says, “You know, it’s a chance of a lifetime. I can’t hold you back.” Because I had an assistant on the show he said, “Just go over and come back at the end of it,” which was really, really generous of him. So we did.

We went to England in ’82, for the summer, and worked at Clacton Pier. They had the circus in a building at the end of an amusement pier in the North Sea. We had an interesting time there, and the owner of the circus and I talked frequently. I talked about ideas that we used in the United States to market circuses. They weren’t doing them there and he said, “Can you come back? We have a big Christmas show in Birmingham, England, every year. Will you come back and work that?” and we did. We came back for that. Then he said, “Will you”—he wanted me to put together a tour of indoor venues for them. We decided to stay and ended

up staying in England and Ireland fourteen years then, at that point.

Nykolaiszyn Wow. What are some of the major differences between circuses in America versus the U.K.?

Royal Well, of course, things have changed here, but at that time, most shows were three-ring. Carson and Barnes was a five-ring show, a big, huge show, whereas European shows are always one-ring. Once in a great while there would be a three-ring show as a novelty, but primarily, they are one-ring. They would stay longer in one location, whereas American circuses tend to do one-day stands. They moved at a slower pace too, the performance. Circuses over in Europe, adults appreciate them a lot more than here. In America, we think of it as children’s entertainment, whereas you go to the circus in Germany in the evening and it’s primarily adults in the audience. There is a lot more subtle humor with the clowns. There is more nuance, people are so close, too. They can appreciate it more.

Nykolaiszyn Would you serve as ringmaster?

Royal Yes. I went over there and I said, “I’ve never really even seen a British ringmaster.” They said, “We don’t want a British ringmaster, we want an American ringmaster.” It happened to be that the musical Barnum had been running in England for a year or so, when I got there, with Michael Crawford and was hugely popular. They liked that and said, “You kind of resemble Michael Crawford a little bit,” so they thought that was a plus. And I would sing, which they didn’t have singing ringmasters over there in production numbers.

Nykolaiszyn What were the types of musical pieces you would sing?

Royal Like, from Barnum. Our finale was “Follow the Flag” and there’s a song, “The Greatest Show on Earth,” we used to open with that. “Be a Clown” was one we did for production numbers.

Nykolaiszyn Were the shows well received?

Royal Yes. Yes it was a very strong show that first year and second year we were over there.

Nykolaiszyn Well, how did you come back to the States?

Royal Well, you have time?

Nykolaiszyn Sure!

Royal Okay. (Laughs) We went the one year with Sally Chipperfield. We went for the summer and then came back so, Sally Chipperfield’s Circus. Then we worked 1983 with them. Then at the end of ’83, we were thinking, “Well, it’s about time, maybe we should just go home.” We got the chance to see the country and then Chipperfield’s, which was another branch of the family, the bigger circus, was going to Ireland that year and they asked me to come over as manager and to book their tour and manage the show. “Hey, we’ve never been to Ireland!” This was1984 so we did that and went to Ireland and had a great tour there. We really loved Ireland.

Then we were thinking about going back to the States and then some French people, the Gruss family, which is kind of like the Ringling family of France, a segment of the family with the Chipperfield’s English Circus in Ireland, and saw how successful Chipperfield’s was. I was able to get terrific publicity that year for the show, and we hit all the right towns. They asked me to market a tour and book a tour of a French circus they were going to call the Grande Cirque de France and bring it over to Ireland. We said, “Well, yes!” We stayed for that, and the tour was unsuccessful, unfortunately. We were in partnership with them and it was a wonderful show, very, very good show, but they lacked the money to really get it started. In fact, when it came time to bring the show from France, they had no money to ship it. I had to go and find a shipper, a ferry company that would transfer the show over and did a promotional tie-in and fortunately got it over there. At the end of the tour we were more or less broke.

We thought, “Well, should we go back to America?” We thought, “No. We don’t want to go back broke.” So we talked to Phillip Gandy, who was a British circus promoter—owner, I should say—and said, “We’ve got a lot of ideas.” And he said, “Well, come on over. We’ll do a deal.” We set up a company together and started promoting the circus using U.S. marketing techniques. Then it was so successful, he and I set up a separate circus called Circus Starr, which is still running today, that we got up and running and ran for a number of years. Then we decided to come back here to the States at the end of ’95, actually early ’96.

Nykolaiszyn And now that you’re back in the States, were you looking to settle or were you still looking to work or retire?

Royal Well, life is full of surprises, especially in the circus business. At the end of 2002, I was contacted by the Big Apple Circus, which is one of the best circuses in the United States. It’s actually a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit company based in New York City. It’s the crème de la crème of circuses. They, for example, play Lincoln Center, right next to the Metropolitan Opera house—literally, next door to the Metropolitan

Opera House for three months every year in the fall and winter. It’s very prestigious, and they offered me a job as a production unit manager, which is like the circus manager. We spent almost four years there and absolutely loved it and thought we would retire there. You moved eleven times a year instead of two hundred and some times, sat in New York City for three months out of the year, and then in Boston for seven weeks. It was wonderful. I have to backtrack a bit. Do we have time for this?

Nykolaiszyn Sure, absolutely.

Royal Okay. Back in 1984, I was booking Chipperfield’s Circus in a town called Naas, in Ireland, at a racetrack, a racecourse as they call it. I was doing the deal with the manager and he said, “You know, the only circus people I know are the Norths.” My ears shot up there and I said, “You know the Norths? Well, Henry North is who got me really interested in the circus!” He said, “Yes!” He said, “They’ve got a place in Galway.” I said, “I know!” It was somewhere in Ireland because they had in the early ’60s, bought back the old family estate, the North family, and I just knew it was somewhere in Galway, County Galway. He said, “Well, it’s outside of a little town called Ballinasloe, near a little town called Aughrim. I said, “Well, wow!” And I finally had my lead. This is before the internet of course, and now you can find anything.

The next year, with the French show, I was coming through going on my way to book Galway. Beverly, my wife, and I made a side trip to Aughrim and stopped in the local pub and asked for directions. They gave me directions and I drove out. There was Northbrook Cattle Company and I went into the office, and there was a man in there sweeping. I said, “Is Mr. Henry North here?” and he said, “Well, he’s not here, but I’m his son, John,” and it was John Ringling North, II. I said, “I’m Jim Royal, with the circus.” He said, “Oh, with the circus!” Then he said, “Come on over to the house.” His father and uncle owned Ringling Brothers from like’38, more or less, right through until they sold it in 1967. He had always thought he was going to be taking over the circus, but his uncle, who was a 51 percent owner decided to sell. So they sent him over here to set up this cattle operation at the old family estate, but he always loved the circus. He and I stayed friends, and then when we were in England we’d come over and stay with him in Ireland, and he’d visit us when he came back to the States.

Again, one of the strange coincidences, we were with Big Apple Circus in 2006, this would’ve been, and we were in Washington. John was coming over to the States, he lived in Ireland, he wanted to get together, and he said, “Let’s go to 21 [Club] in New York. I’ll buy dinner.” We had the date set and about a day or two before then, I was talking to one

of the people in Big Apple and they said, “Did you hear that Kelly Miller is not going out next year? They’re not going to take it out. They’re going to sell the show.” I said, “Wow!” We couldn’t believe it, because it was a great show. It had a wonderful reputation. It was so well run, a high quality show.

So, I don’t know, two days later we were with John at 21 and talking, and he always talked circus. He said, “Well, what’s happening?” I said, “Well, we just found out Kelly Miller is not going on the road,” and we talked about that. That was it. Had a wonderful evening and then he went back to Ireland, and I get a call two or three days later. He says, “Do you know who owns Kelly Miller?” I said, “Yes. David Rawls is the president of the circus.” He said, “If I buy it, will you run it for me?” I said, “Well,” I thought, “Yes, I need a challenge!” We did the arrangements, and he bought the show and a couple of weeks later, here I am in Hugo.

Nykolaiszyn What year is this?

Royal This would be the tail end of 2006. We took over in January 2007. I had thought I’d be retiring with Big Apple, and here we are today with Kelly Miller.

Nykolaiszyn Well, backing up just a little bit, what was your first exposure to Hugo, around what year, with Carson and Barnes?

Royal That would’ve been—we came from Florida, drove up here in February of ’81. My first impression of Hugo wasn’t terribly—we knew it was a great circus city, but we arrived on a horribly cold, dreary, rainy, and by the time we got here it was dark. It was raining and dreary. We came out, parked, and we got stuck in mud. We were pulling a trailer. But then we went in and met D.R. and he was such a great character. You know, the next day the sun was out. It was a beautiful day and everything was fine.

Nykolaiszyn What were your impressions of D.R. Miller?

Royal Oh, we loved him right off the bat. I mean, he had such a reputation because he was such a remarkable, remarkable man. He was just 100 percent circus, the man was. He was great fun, too. I think people in the circus liked him and respected him because he had done everything. They had started with absolutely nothing and built up this huge, huge circus. And he’d had so many ups and downs over the years. We all liked him and respected him. He always seemed, to me, he always had that good sense of humor, no matter how difficult things were.

Nykolaiszyn Well, now you’re at the helm of Kelly Miller. Did you make any changes? What were your plans, your goals, in taking out the show for the new season?

Royal Well, Mr. North, of course, his background is Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey. He always loved the tented circus. They went indoors in 1957 and that kind of lost some of its luster for him. He loves the tent show and I do too. But he was accustomed to this huge production of fifteen hundred people, literally. So he’s always trying to increase things and I’m always saying, “Watch the budget! Watch it. We’ve got to pay the bills, here!” (Laughs) He really concentrates on improving the performance, which is a good thing.

Nykolaiszyn Tell me a little bit about the types of acts now that are on the show, that you try to incorporate.

Royal Well, we do some production numbers in the show, which Mr. North likes. We have three elephants which are in the show. We’ve added wild animals, which they haven’t had for a number of years here. We’ve got an act with five tigers in it. We also have a camel act, and it had choreography with the dancing girls as well in that. We have what’s called a Risley act, a very good Risley act. A Risley act is a very unusual act. You don’t see them often in the circus. It’s juggling human beings with your feet, is what, essentially, it is. In this case, a man, the father of the family, leans back in a cushioned kind of table thing, and propels his children with his feet and they do somersaults, double somersaults, twists, turns, flips. It’s very unusual. And aerial acts, of course. We have a young lady from Australia who’s with us, who does a very extreme sort of aerial act. It’s one of those nail-biters. It keeps you on the edge of your seat.

Nykolaiszyn How do you go about choosing the acts every season?

Royal In the glorious days, when John’s father and his uncle were running Ringling Brothers, John’s uncle would go to Europe every year and travel around all over Europe going to nightclubs, circuses, all sorts of things. One time, one of the most famous Ringling aerialists, Pinito Del Oro, he found in a little gypsy circus, a little open-aired traveling circus. But he would go around scouting acts that way, which was a good way to do it. He had some wonderful meals and cocktails.

But nowadays, people send you, “Here’s a link on YouTube. You can see my act,” and DVDs and that sort of thing. We’ve built up a reputation of having a quality show, which it always was. Kelly Miller always was a first class show and a show where we have a very long season, good, regular, long, lengthy period of pay. We value people on

the show so people have a feeling of being appreciated. We have people knocking on the door to work here.

Nykolaiszyn During the season, as you’re managing everything, could you take me through a typical day for you?

Royal Well, in recent years, there’s so much to do with what we call the front- end of the circus, which is what we are right here, a big chunk of it here in this office, in Hugo. So much takes place before the circus hits the road, and the last year or two I have spent more and more time here, than on the road to the point that Oscar Perez is our day to day manager on the circus. So, right now, and certainly this year, I got the circus on the road and spent the first month with it, making sure everything was all set and running. Then I came in here and it’s just ten hour, eleven hour days here, all day long.

People say the circus is dying, but we’ve been hearing that for generations. We’re having exceptionally good business, year after year. The biggest challenge we face is the costs involved with the circus and now, it’s just so complicated. We spend hours and hours here in this office, dealing with regulations of all types. I mean, your average business is inspected by local authorities maybe once a year, whereas we are inspected every single day of the week by different authorities. We have to comply with different laws, different regulations, different forms, and it’s just endless paperwork.

Nykolaiszyn How do you go about choosing your route? Do you get together with the other circuses in town or you all divvy up the area?

Royal Well, circuses, some of them have, more or less, an established route. We do. We cover an area. We’ve added the Rio Grande Valley, which we didn’t used to do. This is our third year, and it’s given us an additional five or six weeks of work, because we open up down there where it is warm. It’s an eight hundred mile drive down there, but it works well for us. We start there and then we kind of work in a northeasterly direction out as far as—this year, we’re going into New Hampshire. Then we swing west to the Chicagoland area and then back down to Hugo, and that’s over a thirty-eight week period. That’s kind of the established Kelly Miller route, that area. It varies a little bit one way or the other, but we know certain areas we are going to be in at certain times, and then we book the route accordingly. We have a lot of towns that we play every year, some towns every other year.

Nykolaiszyn Do you have a personal favorite?

Royal Of the towns?

Nykolaiszyn Yes.

Royal No, not particularly. There are so many that have certain things that you like about them. There may be a little restaurant or something. That’s one of the things about the circus, when you’ve been doing it for many, many years and going to all these towns, I’ll find myself driving and without thinking when I’m going somewhere, and suddenly I’ll be in a town and think, “Wait a minute! About three blocks up ahead, if you turn right, there’s a really good restaurant right down there, a little home cooking kind of place.” You get there and sure enough, that’s it. And yet, I don’t know where I put my glasses. (Laughter)

Nykolaiszyn How big of a lot, or how small of a lot can you perform on?

Royal We shoot for three hundred feet by three hundred feet. That’s our ideal footprint, but we can fit in smaller areas. We do need about a hundred and eighty by a hundred and eighty minimum, for the tent portion of it. Then we kind of juggle things around. We have some terrifically talented people on the circus. Gustavo Perez, for example, our superintendent of getting that circus shoehorned into different locations and how you get all the vehicles in. We sometimes are in an L-shape, sometimes it’s irregular shapes.

Nykolaiszyn How many trucks contain everything?

Royal On circus-owned vehicles, there are seventeen this year. Then we have, all together, about thirty-three that are traveling with the circus and that is employees’ RVs, acts that have their motor homes or travel trailers that they live in.

Nykolaiszyn Have you noticed, as we go through the years, government regulations becoming tighter and tighter? Are obtaining visas a problem?

Royal Yes, yes. One of our big hurdles since, oh, I guess, since maybe twenty- five years or so, now, circuses have taken advantage of seasonal H2B visas, which allow people to come into the country for nine, I think it’s a maximum of ten months. Trying to find someone who wants to work seven days a week, virtually nonstop for thirty-eight weeks, in all kinds of weather—no matter how cold it is out there, how wet, how muddy, but to put that show up, it’s hard to find people that are willing to do that.

A number of years back, circuses came across the H2B visa worker, which brings up seasonal workers, and we have our workers come from Mexico, from the Puebla area. They’ve been coming to us for years and

years and years. They’re not illegal immigrants. They’re not immigrants at all. They are workers on a visa, a temporary visa. They come out and they want to go home. They just want to come up, get work, and go home. What do we get then? We get reliable help that works very hard no matter what the conditions. They’re friends to us. We’ve know them all for many years. They come home.

We pay taxes, we pay social security, which benefits you and I, because they never use that social security contribution, and the minute the show’s over they are heading home. We have to pay the highest minimum wage of any location we go to in the United States. Of the eighteen states that we go to and all the communities, we have to find which one pays the highest minimum wage and that’s what our minimum wage can be for a worker, these H2B workers. But a lot of them make a lot more money than that. So it’s not like taking jobs away from Americans.

Nykolaiszyn Right.

Royal The government has made it difficult sometimes. Then when the economy was great, people like landscapers and so forth were using them. There is a limited number, sixty-six thousand per year, and the numbers would be taken up and we’d have trouble getting workers. Now, the Department of Labor this year, has decided they don’t think it’s a good program so they’re doing everything they can to make it unworkable, which is a sad commentary. In order to get these workers, we have to advertise for Americans, which is fine. It would be a lot cheaper for us to not have to go through all of this, which costs thousands of dollars. We advertise, and this year, we had two responses, which is typical. We hired one man and he’s still with us. The previous year, we had three responses and one of them came for an interview, the other two never showed. The one that came for an interview was going to come back to work the next week and never showed. It’s just a sad situation.

Nykolaiszyn Approximately, how many H2B visas do you obtain every year?

Royal We do about twenty-three, twenty-two or twenty-three.

Nykolaiszyn Now, when a circus comes to town, how do you find the sponsors?

Royal We have people like what I did when I was a young, obnoxious teenager called a contracting agent. Ideally, we have someone out in the field. As I mentioned, we have a lot of towns that are every-year towns, a lot of towns that are every other year towns. We’re always trying to look for new towns because sometimes you’re with, I don’t know, Lion’s Club,

for example, and then over the years they kind of disintegrate and the club is not as strong as it used to be so you want a new town. So these people go out and we’re going from A to B and in between there we want to play a town, and we’ll look at towns and see which one the demographics look good on. Then the contracting agent will go into that community, look for a place where they can put the circus on, and then start knocking on doors, calling, and talking to chambers of commerce, Rotary clubs, Lions, education foundations, and see who wants to do it as a fundraiser.

Nykolaiszyn Do you ever find that circuses are confused with carnivals?

Royal Oh, people often times, yes. We’re—circus people are a little huffy about that.

Nykolaiszyn Why is that?

Royal This is no disrespect, because there are so many great carnival people, but we feel that the circus is, and certainly in other countries, it’s respected as one of the arts. It’s considered part of the culture. In France, they get letters of honor from the government, circus performers, and they are awarded things. In Monte Carlo, for example, Princess Stephanie is the patron of the circus. They have the Monte Carlo festival about the circus every year. But here, we’re just the circus. People don’t give it the respect we feel it deserves.

Then we think, well, a lot of carnivals have just people that are operating a ride. They’re kind of in some cases, maybe a little bit shiftless. Not in all cases, just one or two, but it doesn’t require tremendous skill, whereas we have people with Kelly Miller that are like eight and nine generations of circus that perform a certain act that they’ve honed for those many, many generations. But because we are a traveling organization, we’re lumped together.

Nykolaiszyn What are some of the essential jobs on the road? We hear the front lot and back lot. What are some of those essential jobs when it comes to putting on a show?

Royal Well, with the circus, the contracting agent is the person who books the circus, gets the contract signed with the Rotary Club, or whoever it may be. That’s early on. Then we have the home office and here, we have a team of people that, more or less, hold the hand of the sponsor and guide them through the process and help them all the way along at promoting the circus together. It’s a joint effort. Then two weeks out or three weeks out, we have Carlee and Charlie, husband and wife clown team, they go in and promote the circus. They meet with the sponsor and go to schools,

old-age homes and things like that, entertaining and promoting. Then twelve days out, the billposters arrive. The billposters put up the posters in the community telling about the circus coming.

Then the twenty-four hour man arrives the day before, the twenty-four man or the arrow man, and he’s the man that, with shows like ours that are primarily one-day stands—today, for example, he would go in the office around nine in the morning, when they open, and talk and get the route to the next town and get the details. Then he leaves and he puts little paper arrows. Each circus or carnival has their own distinctive style of arrows. He puts these on poles, indicating where to turn. He guides the circus from today’s town to the next town. He goes ahead to make sure that the route planned is a good one and that there’s not suddenly a low overpass or something, that they weren’t aware of. He gets to the next town, meets with the sponsor, and puts little markers in where everything is going to go on the lot. He marks where the tent will be, where the elephants are going, where the cookhouse is going, and so forth.

Then, the next morning, the earliest one in this case is Gustavo Perez, with Kelly Miller, who is the superintendent. He is the first one there. He gets there, looks it over and talks with the arrow man and he may make some adjustments, because he’s really the pro at this. He might say, “No, let’s move the tent back a little bit. It looks kind of soft there. It’s supposed to be going to rain and we want to get the show as close to the edge as possible.” Then, he and the arrow man spot everybody, and the process of setting up begins for that day.

The cookhouse goes to work. They set up the cookhouse early and they start preparing the first meal of the day. Men unload the tents. The animals are unloaded and cared for. Tent goes up, seats go in, rigging lights, people practice during the day, school starts. We have a school for the children with the circus. Do a couple of shows, tear it all down, go to sleep, get up, and do it again.

Nykolaiszyn And you’re on to the next town?

Royal Yes. We have this year, a four-day stand. That’s the longest stand of the season. Otherwise, it’s mostly one day.

Nykolaiszyn How many miles, approximately, do you travel every day?

Royal It averages out to be about forty miles. We’ll do ten thousand miles over thirty-eight weeks.

Nykolaiszyn In your eyes, what are the must-haves? When you think circus, do you

think, “I must have elephants. I must have X.” What are your must- haves?

Royal Well, although you can do a great circus in a building, I think a tent circus is really where the circus is at its best. Elephants, of course, I would have to have right up there, too. We poll our audiences and survey them to see what they liked best, and nine times out of ten, number one is always elephants. A good circus really has to have certain ingredients. It has to have good comedy in it. It has to have a nice mixture of animals. It has to have aerial acts. It has to have acrobatic acts, ground acts, and it has to have a good, fast pace to it. Those are the prerequisites, I would say.

Nykolaiszyn We’re inundated with media and smartphones, and everything today has really changed from days gone by. Do you think the circus will continue to remain popular in our culture? Do you see it dwindling?

Royal No, as I mentioned earlier, our obstacle are costs, because moving the circus around the country, as you can imagine, is really expensive. We can’t raise the prices so high that families can’t afford to go. But I remember when I was young and researching the circus. In 1938 Ringling Brothers had a strike by the working personnel. They shut down for a short time. I think it was The New Republic magazine that had the headline, “The Circus is Dead.” This is it, you know, we’re never going to see circuses anymore. Little did they know, huh? The same thing when Ringling Brothers stopped touring under canvas and went into arenas. I think the circus is always going to be around.

The circus arts have certainly been with us way, way, way back. If we get people out, you have a good quality circus, a well-presented circus, like Kelly Miller, you entertain people. You are sure to. The nice thing about the circus is you go inside and it’s not uncommon to see a grandparent, a parent, and a child, three generations sitting together. They’re looking at the circus and they have that same expression on all three ages which is wonderful to watch, whether it’s they’re laughing at the clowns or they’re kind of nervous watching the tight wire performer. The circus is successful because it hits all those ages. It entertains people of all ages. I think that it will always be around. Our problem is the competition and getting people out there. It’s expensive.

Nykolaiszyn Who is your competition?

Royal Everything nowadays. Text messages, people are you know—electronic devices, the internet. People can sit in front of computers now for hours and hours and hours. But when they get out there and sit in the tent, it is a magical time. Of course, the various network television, cable

television, DVDs, movies, all the electronic media, books that are electronic now. What isn’t?

Nykolaiszyn You mentioned a lot about the role of the staff on the road. Tell me a little bit about what goes on in the home office. What type of staff members do you have? You mentioned that they help guide the sponsors through the process. Do you have marketing people in-house here? What are the types of positions?

Royal We have a team of several people here. Me, I kind of just get in everyone’s way, everyone’s hair. We have people out in the field that are doing the booking. Then, Jill Jones, who is our office manager here, she and I sit down, not too far from right now, and start planning the following year’s tour. We know, more or less, what areas we are going to and then we kind of single out what towns we are going to. Then we have to contact the sponsors that we expect to be on board to make sure that they’re on board for the tour and lay out all the tour. Then it’s a process of contacting them and getting all of that lined up.

We have another lady here, Catie Maxwell, and she deals with the sponsors regarding logistics and things like that with them. She goes through different processes with them. We have another position, which we are just getting another person in that Jill is replacing right now, that does the advertising, marketing, and promotion of the events, working with the sponsors. Then we have Brenda Rawls, who does the business side of it, the accounting side, payroll and things like that. Then we have a telephone marketing company that we’re associated with. They work with the sponsors as well.

Nykolaiszyn Do you do automated calls in the community?

Royal No, just to businesses.

Nykolaiszyn Oh, okay. So what’s the most important job on the road that you see, in your eyes? Whose job is really integral to the whole process?

Royal Well, if you’re doing the circus right, everyone. Every single job is really important. In circuses, there’s very little waste ever, in a circus. You don’t find jobs where there is—what used to be called featherbedding, I don’t know if they use that term anymore. That’s an old union term, I guess. People are not fluff jobs. They have meat and potatoes—what horrible metaphors I’m using! (Laughter) I’m sorry. They’re essential jobs in the circus. The man who is shoveling up after the elephants is really important. The thing that people always say in the circus is once in a while people will get that attitude, “I’m going to be out of here, and you guys are going to be lost without me!” Well, it

always goes on. No matter who leaves, it carries on.

Nykolaiszyn What is your favorite part? You’re sitting back, you’ve had a long career, and you’re now running Kelly Miller, what is your favorite part about the circus?

Royal It’s the thing that’s going to sound like a Frank Capra movie. It’ll sound so corny and so hokey—it’s to go into that tent and just look around at the audience. You hear the laughs when the clowns are in and you stick your head in and look and you see the expressions on the people’s faces. You see families together, having a great time and knowing that the magic had some [impact].

Nykolaiszyn Do you have some just really stand-out circus moments as you look back, as you get together with your wife or your circus family, that you like to tell, just in your mind that you go back to all the time.

Royal Well, there are those funny moments that we think about and neat experiences. I remember, the first time we were in England and that first opening, that first show, during the finale production, I was there and I was thinking, “We’re in England! Hey, we’re here! We made it in England! We’re with an English circus!” That is really, really something. I think opening at Lincoln Center with Big Apple was something we’ll always remember, that first time we did that.

Nykolaiszyn Tell me a little bit about the Hugo community. The circus is a big part of the community. Are they friendly to the needs of showmen?

Royal They are, indeed. We were with, as I mentioned, Carson and Barnes in ’81,’82, and then we were over in Europe all that time. Then, we came back to work for D.R. when he put out a show called the Chinese Imperial Circus. He had a complete Chinese circus he brought over, from China obviously, and we toured America and Canada with it. I remember coming back at the end of that season and you drive down Jackson [Street] in Hugo, and that was back in the days when they’d have the reader board signs, businesses used to have them, and they would say, “Welcome home circus!” all the different businesses, and I thought, “Wow! That’s really great.” And that’s just the way it is. Here in Hugo, the circus is so much a part of it.

Even not all that long ago, last fall, I guess it was, I was in the post office and someone, I have no idea who it was who knew me, and said, “How was the season?” I said, “Oh, we had a good season,” and we were talking. People ask you that and they kind of know about the circus, understand the circus more than businesses in a regular community, a non-circus community. We’re very much a part of it here

and accepted just like as if we ran the lumber yard or something, which is great.

You get support. You can go into a bank and talk about circus things and they know what you’re talking about. I remember the first year we took over Kelly Miller, one of the bank presidents was a member of the Rotary Club, which was a sponsor of the circus every year, and he saw me a few days before we opened. We opened on a Saturday. He said, “If you need anything, let me know. We’ll come open the bank for you. If you need to get change or anything, let me know.” That’s the kind of attitude here.

Nykolaiszyn Why keep winter quarters in Hugo? Is it just because of the longstanding history? Is there anything you find unique about the location?

Royal Well, there’s an advantage to being here. A lot of shows winter in Florida, which of course, has a better winter than we do. But surprisingly, Hugo winters are relatively mild. The animals can go out most of the time. We have acres and acres of land for animals to go out on. So often people will call me and say, “Oh, you’re in Oklahoma. Boy! You had a horrible storm there the other day!” Well, they did in Oklahoma City and north, but where we are, in this little southeastern corner, for some reason we don’t get the horrible weather so often. Winters aren’t absolutely dreadful here. They’re fairly mild.

Florida, of course, is great. But in Florida, you really can only go north. That’s about all you can really do there. Whereas here, we could go west, we could go into west Texas, Arizona, head out to California that way. We could go north, through the plains states. We could go the way Kelly Miller used to do and head off into Arkansas and up north that way or you can go south, go into Louisiana. You’ve got many different directions to go to start your tour so we have that advantage. Geographically, it’s in a good location. The climate is mild, a little warm in the summertime, but the circus isn’t here [then].

Nykolaiszyn Very warm in the summertime! (Laughs) Where do you see the circus business going in the next ten to twenty years? Do you see any major changes?

Royal There’s the Cirque du Soleil, of course, has come out on the scene and it’s a hybrid of the circus. I think, eventually, it’s just going to kind of stabilize. It’s in an expansion period right now, but it’ll shrink somewhat. The number of tented shows like ours has diminished over the years and that’s really, as I mentioned before, primarily, the cost is the big challenge we face. I think that we are probably at about the point where it’s not going to get fewer then there are right now. There will

continue to be the building circuses. I think it’ll, more or less, be about what it is now. I don’t see great changes. But then one never knows what will happen. I mean, we didn’t know. John North II, who is our owner, spends part of his year in Ireland and he texts me messages throughout the day. Ten years ago, I never would’ve thought I could sit here like this and be in Ireland in a second. There could be some surprises there that will affect us.

Nykolaiszyn Any major—not that I want to tip off your competition—any major plans you’re hoping to integrate into future Kelly Miller shows?

Royal No, we’ve kind of settled on the format, a very traditional circus, and all the ingredients of an old-fashioned circus. We find it’s very successful. We’re getting nothing but good reviews from our sponsors and our audiences. We’re doing it the way we think it used to be and the way it should be done. It’s working very well. I think if we keep to that format, we’re in good shape. Of course, I’m always trying to get new surprises in it, new acts, new features, freshening it up.

Nykolaiszyn I want to focus a little bit on the museum that’s coming to town and kind of the origins and how it kind of evolved, the background of the history of it.

Royal The library, here in Hugo, was in a building that leaked and it was not in a great state of repair. Local people felt, on the library board, that they needed a new library. They got together, worked really hard, held fundraisers, and did everything possible. I remember seeing a sign “Future home of the library,” on a vacant lot. Then I was gone. I came back from New York four years later and there was this beautiful new library. It’s a gorgeous library. Inside, there is a huge circus section there. They concentrate on the circus there. It has a circus motif in it. There’s a big brown sculpture of the circus inside.

The librarian, Lila Swink, and Marilyn Custer, who’s on the library board, were looking out the beautiful window, the great big window of the library across the street, at a house in a vacant lot and thinking, “Boy, we don’t want to see a fast food restaurant going in there. We need to put something there.” They thought having an arts facility there of some sort and then that idea didn’t work too well. Then they thought, “Wait a minute! A circus museum! That’s what we need, a circus museum and park there. A small park and a museum, a small museum.” So they began working on it and it became a 501(c)(3). They invited each of the circuses to participate. I’m the board member for Kelly Miller, and we’ve been working ever since. We got a mortgage and bought the property. We were going to convert the house that’s on the property into a museum, but in talking to the funders, they said that we

would be better off dismantling the house. It would be easier to get funding for a brand new facility that was purpose-built than try to convert an old structure. But fortunately, we’re taking bits and pieces of the house and selling it—all the old interior doors, wood work, and so forth. We’re recycling it, which is a good thing.

We’re doing various fundraisers to raise money to build the museum, and it’ll salute Hugo circus history. We plan to have it very much an educational facility. It’s going to be a series of buildings, four pods connecting. One of them is an educational building, where we’ll be giving lectures on the circus and different aspects on the circus and teaching circus skills to youth. That’s one of the things we’re starting on right now. This fall we’ll be working with Hugo schools. The museum has a project teaching circus skills, basic skills, to the youngsters and it gives them a chance to develop physically, challenge them mentally, get self-esteem, and learn teamwork and things like that.

Nykolaiszyn Does the house have any historical circus significance?

Royal Well, not really. It was owned for some time by David Rawls, who was with the circus for many years, and was president of the Kelly Miller Circus. It just happened to be there in the right location.

Nykolaiszyn I guess, now, it’s still in the fundraising process?

Royal Yes, right now we have two major fundraisers. We have the circus festival, the first Saturday in November, on the museum grounds where we have free circus acts that circus people donate their time and talent and various games and so forth, fun activities, and chances for people to spend money and donate. Then we started last January, for the first time, we open a café once a year. It’s called the International Red Nose Café and it was a great success last year. What we do is we have recipes from circus performers. In the circus business, it’s always very international. When we have an evening off or something, frequently, we’ll have potluck dinners together. The person from France brings a recipe that their family has, people from Peru bring a specialty from Peru. You get all these wonderful international dishes that you can taste and learn about the culture. Well, we decided we’ll have a meal like that. So we have a huge buffet, and last year we did capacity business. People came to try all these different circus recipes, and we had circus acts performing as well. That’s the other major fundraiser—and a cookbook is coming out with those recipes, shortly.

Nykolaiszyn Wonderful.

Royal And we’re seeking funding through different organizations.

Nykolaiszyn Is there an estimated completion date?

Royal No, unfortunately not. Just when things were going good, that’s when the old economy hit the skids, and it has been very difficult fundraising major contributions.

Nykolaiszyn It seems like a good project to undertake, especially in Hugo, with the history and the continuing winter quarters of several organizations.

Royal Hugo is an area that’s economically deprived in this part of the state. They’re trying to bolster tourism here, because there is a wonderful Hugo Lake and outdoor facilities, and people are aware of Hugo as a circus town, and so they come to the town to see a little bit of the circus. Of course, we have the Showmen’s Rest cemetery, which is part of Mount Olivet Cemetery and interesting gravestones of the circus people, but it needs that museum. It needs that piece in there so people can come at any time of year and experience part of the circus and that’s what the museum will provide.

Nykolaiszyn Well, one more question, not that I’m trying to put you into retirement…

Royal I’ve got my lottery ticket! (Laughter)

Nykolaiszyn ...as you look towards the future and where you want to retire you, of course, have traveled all over the world, all over the country. Are there any parts of the world you have your eye on for retirement?

Royal Well, finances of course, enter into that, always. We bought a home in Iowa. I grew up in Chicago, but my grandparents were in a little town, he was a coal miner in southern Iowa. My wife and I used to visit there and we liked the area. We bought a house there thinking we would retire there, but now we spend so much time in Hugo, we’ve recently bought a mobile home here, in Hugo. Maybe we’ll be part of the year here, part of the year there, back and forth. I don’t know.

Nykolaiszyn Do you miss going out on the road much?

Royal Yes and no. Nowadays, business is conducted electronically so much and when you’re on the road, sometimes you’re in mountains and don’t get good internet reception. You can’t send emails, you can’t scan items and send them so I find I can get so much more done sitting in an office than everyday moving. With your office on the road, you have to kind of put things down because you’re traveling and it sucks up a lot of valuable time. But I do miss traveling.

Nykolaiszyn You miss it a little bit?

Royal Yes.

Nykolaiszyn Another question to ask, I know early on you had your sights set on circus, but if you could do it all over again, if you could be anything you wanted to be, what would you be?

Royal The son of extremely wealthy parents and a lazy… No. (Laughs) I think the circus has given me so much satisfaction, I can’t think of anything else that I would do. Like I said earlier, you’re really lucky if you find something that you love and you make a living out of it. It has taken me all over the world almost, and it’s something that can really stir you inside. It hits you that way. Like Cecil B. DeMille said, “You can shake the sawdust out of your shoes, but you can’t shake it out of your heart,” and I can’t imagine anything else that would do that. I’m sure there is possibly something, but I don’t know what it is.

Nykolaiszyn All right, I’m going to put you on the spot. Are you ready?

Royal I’m ready.

Nykolaiszyn Okay, how would you close a show as a ringmaster?

Royal I used to say—what was it that I used to say? “Until we meet again, keep the circus magic in your heart.”

Nykolaiszyn Well, I think that’s a good way to end. Did you change it up through the years?

Royal Yes. I was trying to think of something and I came up with that one, at some point.

Nykolaiszyn Well, thank you very much for your time today.

Royal My pleasure.

------End of interview ------