April 15, 2010: Showman's Rest

[xoxoxoBruce]

Hugo, OK, has been a wintering spot for traveling circuses since the 1930s.
So to many of the circus folk, Hugo is as close to a "home" as they have.
As a result, many of these people end up buried there.

Although many circuses have rested in Hugo, its current winter denizens are Carson & Barnes Circus and its sister circus, Kelly Miller. When Kelly died in 1960, his brother D.R. Miller purchased a section in the town cemetery to memorialize him and other circus performers.
Marked by elephant topped monuments, the Showmen’s Rest section in Hugo’s Mount Olivet Cemetery holds tributes to “all showmen under God’s big top,” from animal trainers to jugglers to high wire artists. The life-size grave of Ringmaster John Strong wearing a top hat designates him as ”the man with more friends than Santa Claus” and Zefta Loyal still celebrates her title as the “Queen of Bareback Riders.”

It would be interesting to see, as would another section...

The Mount Olivet Cemetery also has the Bull Rider’s Reprieve section, with the graves of rodeo stars Freckles Brown, who was the first to ride the wild bull Tornado, and Lane Frost, a young champion bull rider who was gored during a performance.

link