The Return of ShowMe

One-Ring Wonder Resounds With Local Circus Enthusiasts

Kelly Miller packs them in at Sylvania Twp.

BY MARK ZABORNEY
BLADE STAFF WRITER

Published: 8/13/2011
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The bleachers were packed and the air properly sultry Friday inside the big tent staked in a Sylvania Township field.

The circus was in town -- "America's One Ring Wonder," the program's headline read, "Kelly Miller Circus, owned and operated by John Ringling North II."

Tigers obey the commands of their trainer, rolling around and impressing audience members during their performance at the Kelly Miller Circus in Sylvania Township..
Photo: © THE BLADE/AMY E. VOIGT

The audience, age diverse and children all, marveled at the tigers and elephants and gasped at the aerialists and acrobats inside the big top at Brint and Centennial roads.

Few showed the enthusiasm of Katie Donatini, 25, of Sylvania, who was about 10 when she last attended a circus, and a sterile indoor event at that.

She leaned forward as tiger master Ryan Holder led five cats through their paces -- jumping over each other; lying side by side, stock still, a living striped carpet; walking and hopping forward and backward on their hind legs.

Then, on command, the tigers rolled over and over around the circus ring.

"They're still rolling! Oh, my God!" Ms. Donatini said to her aunt, Carol Connolly Pletz.

"I'm out-of-my-mind excited," she said during a break in the action. "I love the animals."

Her aunt said, "This is like the old-time circus where they came to town and set up a tent."


For complete article:

>> "One-ring wonder resounds with local circus enthusiasts," ToledoBlade.com, 08/13/2011