Come one, come all: Shrine Circus has three shows in DL Thursday
It’s coming — the pink and blue puff that melts in your mouth, crystallizing to perfection... The twirley, flashy things that nobody knows quite what they are, but glow with magnificence in the darkness...
By: Paula Quam, DL-Online
from: dl-online.com
March 16, 2012,
Detroit Lakes, MN--It’s coming — the pink and blue puff that melts in your mouth, crystallizing to perfection...
The twirley, flashy things that nobody knows quite what they are, but glow with magnificence in the darkness…
The smell of the swaying elephants mixed with juvenile excitement generated from people of all ages...
The El Zagal Shrine Circus is on its way to Detroit Lakes, set for three shows on Thursday, March 22 at the Kent Freeman Sports Arena.
“They have the elephants, the Bengal tigers, three different animal acts…,” said Lowell Thompson of the DL Shriners, “and then last year we put some hooks into the ceiling at the arena so they will do some aerial acts, too — everybody really enjoys that.”
The high wire and trapeze acts are designed to dazzle, as the clowns clamor for laughs.
Thompson says the event is always a hit in Detroit Lakes, even to the point where they often sell out.
“Last year we turned 250 people away from the evening performance because the arena only holds 1,200 people,” said Thompson, “but we did provide those people with free tickets to the Fargo circus, so they weren’t too disappointed.”
Local fifth-graders will be saturating the day performances, which start at 10 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. — a tradition that began 17 years ago when the Shriners decided to provide free shows to them.
Fifth graders will be descending on the arena from Detroit Lakes, Frazee, Lake Park-Audubon, Mahnomen, Waubun-Ogema-White Earth, Pelican Rapids, Park Rapids, Perham, Menaga and New York Mills.
“Now going around and selling advertising for our color book, I will sometimes get people who say they remember how they couldn’t wait to get to the fifth grade because they knew they’d get to go to the circus,” said Thompson, adding that roughly 1,400 students from the area are bused in for the show.
Another huge draw for local kids is the bike-giveaway.
About 60 children will win a bike at the circus this year, as local businesses chip in to sponsor the giveaway.
“At half-time kids will buy candy bars, and inside the wrapper it might say ‘free bike’, and so then they can go down and pick out the bike they want and get a picture with a Shriner,” said Thompson, “and then we’ll frame that picture and send it to the sponsor of that bike.”
read more at:
http://www.dlonline.com/event/article/id/66532/group/Entertainment/
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