Circus Historical Society Officers & Trustees

Dan Lyon has been an enthusiastic member of CHS since the last century. He has experience as an executive producer and producer for film & tv, playwright, publicist for a ballet company, game inventor, theatrical producer, actor, entertainment lawyer and film/tv distribution executive. His awards include a Peabody, and a Golden Reel for the highest-grossing Canadian feature film. Dan’s play about the life of P.T. Barnum, Showman, enjoyed productions in New York, Boston, and his hometown Toronto. More recently, his comedy, The Great Conway Sideshow, was about a bickering married couple who somehow manage to perform together as sideshow artists. Dan is a collector of circus memorabilia, with a focus on Strobridge and other early twentieth century posters, together with letterhead, books, and programs. Dan’s board experience includes a publicly traded entertainment company and two charitable corporations for performing artists. His favorite quote comes from e.e. cummings: “Damn everything but the circus!”

Al Stencell is a CHS Past President. Al is a Canadian and has been a trustee since the 1997 reorganization. A retired showman, he worked his way up through concessions, novelties, and bill posting until becoming a showman. From 1973 to 1976 he was part owner of Royal Bros. He and his wife founded and operated Martin and Downs Circus from 1977 to 1983. In 1983 he built Super Circus International and toured it until 1992. A gifted raconteur, his knack for storytelling led to writing two popular books, with a third soon to be published.

Stasia Kelly is a media veteran who has enjoyed a diverse career both in and out of the spotlight. She spent a number of years as a broadcast personality in Atlanta, GA and the Tampa Bay area in FL. She served as an Advance Representative and writer for the Ice Capades, and has worked regularly as a voice artist for a variety of regional and national companies. She worked in corporate television, most notably producing an award winning internal video series for the forest products giant, Georgia-Pacific, as well as projects for UPS, Coca-Cola and IBM. Her current position as a Media Relations Specialist for the Georgia Forestry Commission incorporates her love of forestry and the outdoors with her passion for people and writing. Stasia was born to a circus family in Sarasota, FL, the one-time home of Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus. Her mother, Evi, was an acrobat with the “Four Whirlwinds” from Germany. Her father was the world-famous clown, Emmett Kelly, Sr., who created the iconic sad-faced character, “Weary Willie,” on his drawing board as a young cartoonist.

Bonnie Griffin is a curator, visual storyteller, and research-based artist from the UK, Bonnie has worked in the cultural heritage sector for over 20 years. Her practice explores animal celebrities, mass culture, and death and legacy. She is particularly interested in how animals function as lenses through which we understand collective culture, an interest that naturally led her to circus! Bonnie is writing the biography of elephant Bolivar and his keeper Eph Thompson. She presented the exhibition Remember Bolivar in 2019, examining how Bolivar helped shape a cohesive American culture in the years following the Civil War. Inspired by the work of mentor Veronica Blair (UJP), Bonnie founded the Eph Thompson Project to share Thompson’s legacy. Her first article for Bandwagon: The Journal of the Circus Historical Society (2024) explored how Thompson revealed elephant intelligence to circusgoers across the globe. Bonnie is excited to give back to the circus community that has so warmly supported her work.

Aíne Norris (pronounced “AWN-yuh”) is a Ph.D. candidate at Old Dominion University. She received her B.A. (2004) and M.A. (2016) in English and research from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her research interests include circus and sideshow history, oddities in popular culture, and the archival examination of lore and superstition using mixed-methods technologies. Her research uncovering untold information about turn-of-the-century aerialist, Eva Clark, was featured in the Cincinnati Enquirer, The News Virginian, and on WHSV TV-3 in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Norris was the 2022 Circus & Allied Arts Collection Fellow at Milner Library Special Collections at Illinois State University to support her doctoral dissertation on the insider cultural importance of circus language. In 2025, Norris co-curated an exhibit on the history of iron jaw performance for Circus World Museum with Jen Cronk. She currently leads CHS marketing, design, and communication efforts including digital strategy, social media, website maintenance, print collateral, editing and posting video content on YouTube, newsletter design, analytics, and reporting, and maintaining the Bandwagon archive on Internet Archive. Read more about Aíne’s research and projects on ainenorris.info.

While representing RBBB at the Wu Ciao festival, Chris was discovered by Cirque du Soleil and created/performed a BMX bike act for their first tour of Japan and later a German Wheel act for their production of Quidam. His engineering chops and creative energy led him to run away with his own circus company, Cirque Mechanics. Chris’ innovative machines interact with acrobats, in Cirque Mechanics productions of Birdhouse Factory, Boom Town, Pedal Punk, 42ft and in Zephyr, A Whirlwind of Circus, which continues its US theater tour this fall. Cirque Mechanics presented their first production Under Canvas in 2022. Chris is a producing partner of the Vegas International Variety Arts Festival (VIVA Fest), and a Founding Board Member of the American Circus Alliance (ACA).

With over 25 years of experience in the circus and entertainment industry, Julie Parkinson is the first third-generation member of the Circus Historical Society. Julie’s performing career spanned 15 years, beginning at Circus World Museum and later performing for 4 years on Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s Blue Unit, among other shows. In 2003 Julie joined the Big Apple Circus where she served as Company Manager for 3 years. Next Julie joined the staff at Cirque du Soleil’s The Beatles LOVE while the show was in creation. She stayed with LOVE for 5 years, later moving to VIVA Elvis and finally Zarkana, completing over 7 years with CDS in lead positions. Recently Julie managed the social media for The Ringling for over a year. She currently resides in Sarasota, while working as a freelance designer and artist for Cirque du Soleil and other large-scale production companies. Julie is the daughter of Greg Parkinson, who was the Executive Director of Circus World Museum for 17 years and the granddaughter of Bob Parkinson, founder of the Robert L. Parkinson Library and Research Center at Circus World Museum. Julie enjoys collecting circus posters and learning about circus history. She is thrilled to have been recently elected to the CHS board of directors and hopes that her experience, ideas and network will help generate new memberships for the organization.

Rainie is the Program Director of Gamma Phi Circus at Illinois State University. She previously worked as a librarian in the Circus & Allied Arts Collection at the Milner Library at ISU, a communications consultant to the American Youth Circus Organization (AYCO), and as an online director for Circus Now. She earned a Master of Science degree in library science from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences degree in English from Illinois State University.

Jim Foster remembers feeding peanuts to the Ringling elephants in the late ‘30s, clowning for a day with Dailey Bros. in the ‘40s and hanging out with Doc Henderson when Cecil B. DeMille was plotting camera angles on The Greatest Show on Earth in 1949–50.  He’s written numerous newspaper stories about the circus and a few years ago worked Ken Harck’s Bros. Grimm Circus Freak Show on Funtown Pier at Seaside Heights. N.J.

Trustee Fred D. Pfening III is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan and holds a master’s degree in economic history from Ohio State University. He has been a CHS member almost his entire life, having joined in 1961 when only twelve years old. He is a past President (1986-89), has been a Trustee since CHS was reorganized in 1997, and has served as Managing Editor of Bandwagon. He is CEO of the Fred D. Pfening Company, manufacturers of bakery and allied machinery, Columbus, Ohio.

Trustee Brian Hollifield and his wife, Kisha, operate Freedom Auction Company, who’s focus is sale of special collections.  Living and working in the Sarasota area made it nearly impossible to avoid the circus bug and soon they found themselves selling Circus Memorabilia.  In the curating process of circus catalogs, there has always been an effort to get the historical facts correct concerning items that were to be sold.  The CHS became a wonderful resource and in the process, Brian discovered a new-found passion, that being the research and discovery of all things circus. 

Peter Gorman lives in Vancouver, BC. He has had a successful career in the Decorative Arts for almost 40 years which has allowed him to become a collector of circus artifacts to preserve and protect and restore these important elements of our circus history. He has been a member of the CHS for over 25 years. Peter is a 30-year board member of the Circus Hall of Fame in Peru, IN, and is currently a Vice President in the role of creating an Indiana Circus Legacy in cooperation with State and Local agencies. A model builder since the age of 6, Peter is a 30+-year member of the Circus Model Builders. His diorama is currently in the French Lick West Baden Museum, along with the Two Hemispheres bandwagon, to engage and promote public interest in circus history preservation in that part of Indiana. 

Growing up, Patrick Bracy was told family stories about his circus heritage, but there was no real proof ever provided. It wasn’t until he and his wife, Heather, visited the Parkinson Research Center at the Circus World Museum in Baraboo that they discovered his great grandmother was the sole proprietor of the Rose Kilian Overland Show from 1907-30. Her daughter, Rosa Rosaland was a principal circus equestrienne who toured with many great shows like John Robinson, King & Tucker, Campbell Bros, Hagenbeck-Wallace, Barnum Bailey, and Sells-Floto. Subsequently, there was a lot more waiting to be uncovered with membership in CHS. He graduated with a degree in marketing from Middle Tennessee State University, has a 25-year career in Agriculture, currently living in Westfield, IN and working as a marketer for Corteva Agriscience with some of the most recognized brands in agriculture.

Peggy Williams was the first female graduate of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College to ever appear in The Greatest Show On Earth in 1970.  Her accomplishments as a performer, instructor and mentor helped pave the way for many aspiring entertainers who would appear in the circus.  In 1980, she distinguished herself again by becoming the first woman to take the role as assistant performance director for Ringling, before being appointed performance director – again a first in the company’s history – for the Special International Edition of The Greatest Show On Earth to visit Japan. Peggy’s passion for education would ultimately take her from the live show to the Feld Entertainment corporate office, where in 1980 she worked to create Ringling’s Department of Education Services.  Under her leadership Circusworks was created as a resource for teachers that explored many areas of curriculum that brought circus themes into the classroom. Peggy is a 2023 Circus Ring of Fame inductee.

Wayne McCary grew up in the amusement park industry and was the CEO of the Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland Maine. He is the former CEO of the Eastern States Exposition from 1991 thru 2012, the founder and producer of the Exposition’s Super Circus from 1970-2012 and the producer of the Maine Shrine Circus circuit for forty consecutive years. In recent years he has replicated the Big E Super Circus experience at the Utah State Fair and the Indiana State Fair. McCary has served as President of both the OABA and the IAFE. and was an active advocate for the retention of animals in the circus and fair industries. He currently serves as the Vice President of the Federation Mondiale du Cirque in Monte Carlo. McCary was inducted into the Circus Ring of Fame in 2024.

Mike Melssen’s more than 40 years of experience with touring shows, attractions, and exhibits began with Feld Entertainment in 1980, first as a Regional Marketing Director and then shortly afterwards, transferring to the Blue Unit of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. There, he held several positions, before advancing to General Manager from 1987-1994. This experience served him well as he transitioned into an independent consultant and production manager for a variety of other touring ventures including DisneyFair, DisneyFest Asia, NFL Experience Live/On Tour, Nickelodeon Rocket Power Live, The Mummy Returns, Live, Big Apple Circus-Abu Dhabi Summer Festival & primarily, as Touring Exhibit Production Coordinator for The Academy of Art University. As a young person, Mike was intrigued by many of the unique aspects of a traveling circus. Little did he ever expect that one day that he’d be responsible for bringing TGSOE to so many cities and for the pleasure of so many.

Trustee Emeritus Dave Price was born in Nashville the same year that both Barnes-Sells-Floto with RBBB Features and Robbins Bros with Clyde Beatty played the town. His earliest circus memories are from 1943 when he saw two circuses; at one he saw Beatty and at the other Gargantua.  He has collected circus posters since 1952. Price worked as a billposter on the advance of eight different circuses, both large and small, and his wife Mary Jane was a press agent when they were with the Hanneford show. He eventually earned a B. S. from Middle Tennessee State College and an M. A. Ed. from Tennessee State University. Dave joined the CHS in 1958 and attended his first convention in 1966. His first piece to appear in Bandwagon was in 1967 followed by more than a dozen over the years.  He served as secretary 1968-69 and secretary/treasurer 1996-2003.