DAVE SALUTOS

FAMILY CIRCUS: After 25 years, Ringmaster Dave Salutos is still guiding circus audiences through wonder and amazement

 

Dave Salutos
From: wiscnews.com
July 20, 2013
Behind the tall maroon curtain Dave Salutos joked backstage with two performers after a morning in the sweltering heat.
He had shed his heavy red coat, having spent the last hour entertaining a crowd at Circus World, a place where a smile rarely leaves his face.
Only a few minutes before, he was standing in a line with everyone else in the Big Top Show, greeting wide-eyed children and parents who came to see something spectacular.
Between shows, Salutos grabs some air conditioning before his next act at the Wheel of Destiny. There are no days off this time of year, not for the person who has put this show together.
Salutos is the veteran who has walked these grounds for 31 years — a quarter century as ringmaster.
“I came on the scene when the museum was getting going,” he said. “Spent all my growing up years, my grade school years, down here. All my birthday parties were here.”
He sold cotton candy and snow cones for his first job, but he always noticed the man in the red coat who seemed to be the glue that brought everything together. A guide for the day.
“I thought, ‘Oh, wouldn’t it be great to be the ringmaster?’” he said.
Five years later, he was.
Next Saturday, when Baraboo’s first Big Top Parade takes to the Square in a new event, Salutos will be leading the charge like a drum major in a band.
“I always thought the circus was bigger than life. Much bigger than life,” he said. “Very splashy, very colorful and very exciting, always.”
With a row of red coats and white shirts lining a wall in his dressing room, Salutos was getting ready to go back to work.
Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, the show’s about to begin.
read more:
http://www.wiscnews.com/baraboonewsrepublic/news/local/article_313a2800-f09c-11e2-9c6b-001a4bcf887a.html