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The St Armands Circle Ring of Fame
Sunday January 17, 2010 is the 23rd Annual St Armands Circle Ring of Fame induction ceremony. From 12:30 p.m. - 4 p.m, the ceremony takes place in St. Armand's Circle Park. 2010's honorees are: Tino Wallenda Zupe, a Highwire artist and grandson of Karl Wallenda; Rudi and Sue Lenz, a Popular Chimpanzee Act; Manuel "Junior" Ruffin, a veteran animal trainer, tent-master & train-master; Tony Steele, a Flying Trapeze Artist and Dime Wilson Family, a 2 generation clan who performed for nearly a century as clowns and in aerial & animal acts.
Sarasota's Own Unique Outdoor Hall of Fame
The St Armands Circle Ring of Fame around the Central Park was first started in 1987 as a way to honor world famous circus performers and the rich circus heritage of the Sarasota area. It's a "Ring of Fame;" as in Three "Ring" Circus!
The St Armands Circle Ring of Fame honors circus greats with their own bronze plaques along the palm-tree circled park’s outer edge. Over 80 circus greats from all over the world are remembered here.
Stroll around the outer edge of St Armand's Circle Park and see if you recognize and remember any of the names of these circus greats who have been inducted into the Ring of Fame:
The five Ringling Brothers, P.T. Barnum, John Ringling North, Emmett Kelley, the famed clown, and many more circus people. The St Armands Circle Ring of Fame inducts its honorees annually, usually in January.
Why Commemorate the Circus? Why a "Ring of Fame" and not a "Hall of Fame," you ask? Why is there a St Armands "Circle?"Because circus great John Ringling purchased St Armands Key in 1917 for his development ideas, which included residential lots and a shopping center laid out in a circle, after the famed “Three RING Circus!”
In 1925, Ringling commissioned the work to begin on a causeway to join St Armands Key to the downtown Sarasota area. In fact, the Ringling Brothers’ Circus elephants were used to haul the huge log-timbers from which the bridge and causeway would be built.
A year later, amid great pomp, ceremony, showmanship and probably more than just a little hype; Ringling was, after all, a great Circus promoter, both the John Ringling Causeway and the Ringling Estates development opened for business on St Armands Key. With circus great John Ringling, himself, leading a parade across the causeway and with his Circus Band playing from a bandstand in the center of St. Armands Circle, it must have been quite the sight! Can’t you just hear the music and picture the hoopla?
When the depression arose in the U.S. in the early 20th Century John Ringling could no longer afford to maintain St Armands, so he gifted it to the City of Sarasota. How’s all that for a colorful start to the 20th Century history of St Armands Key and the Sarasota area!
One last circus note of Sarasota significance: Actual scenes of the 1952 Academy Award Winning motion picture with Charleton Heston, “The Greatest Show on Earth,” were filmed in Sarasota, Florida, the winter home of the Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus in those days. And, the rights for the film makers to the use of the movie title and circus’s motto, “The Greatest Show on Earth,” and of Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey's facilities and performances, were purchased for $250,000. A lot of money in those days!
So now, after reading all of that, you should have a fairly good idea of why we celebrate Sarasota's Circus History and why we have a St Armands Circle Ring of Fame! And if you're old enough to have grown up during a time when kids ran away to join the circus, and if you ever had those kinds of dreams yourself, you should definitely take a walk around the Ring of Fame. Maybe it'll bring out the kid in you! Mmmm, I can smell the popcorn and cotton candy...
Directions: From Sarasota, take Rt. 41 through the Bay front/downtown area of Sarasota over the John Ringling Bridge (southwest) and on to St. Armand's Key and "The Circle."
Return from St Armands Circle Ring of Fame to Sarasota Attractions page.
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