Want To Be A Rodeo Clown?

Want To Be A Rodeo Clown? SPECIALTY/SERVICES Specialty/Services 5-5-20 Continually growing in popularity, rodeos need skilled performers, especially rodeo clowns to detract bulls after the bull rider has been thrown. One of the best bullfighting clowns in the business is Bob Donaldson, who makes $750 per performance and earns up to $60,000 a year. Donaldson also is an instructor at the Sankey Rodeo School of Rose Hill, Kan., near Wichita. At the weekend school, operated by C. L. "Bud" Sankey and Ike Sankey, you can study not only bullfighting and clowning but also bull riding, bareback riding, and bronc riding. Cost for a three-day course of training in one of the skills is $200. If you come back later for another course, the cost is $175. (Room and board not included.) "Some of our students are established performers who come to sharpen their skills," Bud Sankey told FARM SHOW. Enrollment per session averages 60 to 80 students. While it's a hazardous business, Sankey says nobody has ever been killed at one of his schools, and he couldn't think of any deaths from bullfighting in actual rodeos. Injuries? Soreness? "Well, yes," said Sankey. "That's kind of part of the business." Average age of students attending his schools is the mid-20s, but the range in ages is from "the teens to the 50's." It doesn't necessarily take live-stock experience to be successful, he adds, but quickness and natural athletic ability help. Women, too, attend but their numbers are small. Sankey notes that in a recent bullfighting session, a 24-year-old Tulsa, Okla., policewoman completed the course. "You receive instruction and then actually get into the ring with a bull the very first day," explains Sankey. "If all else fails, the self-preservation instinct helps you." "Bullfighting," he explains, "evolves around the idea that although a person probably can't out-run a bull, you can outmaneuver him. The bull has to pivot on his front legs,like a wheelbarrow turns." The Sankey school is one of about a dozen in the U.S., and has been operating since 1973. About 150 rodeo clowns are active in the business, and some handle both clowning and bullfighting chores. For more information, contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Sankey Rodeo Schools, Rt. 1, Box 201, Rose Hill, Kan. 67133 (ph 316 776-2592).

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