If you were a kindergartner in Powell in the mid-1970s or later, you likely remember what part you played in the Kindergarten Circus.

“No one forgets what they were in the circus,” said Lanette Carter, a retired kindergarten teacher. “I can’t help but smile when I think about it.”

A beloved Powell tradition, the annual show features local kids as the stars, from clowns to elephants to wildcats, with young ringmasters directing the performance.

With school buildings closed this spring due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it will be the first time in nearly 45 years that the circus hasn’t come to town.

“It’s just heartbreaking to me that they’re not having it this year,” Carter said. “... I just feel sorry for the kids. But hang in there — it’ll be OK.”

Teachers Mary K Orendorff and Virgina Damori founded the first Kindergarten Circus in the spring of 1976.

“It was Mary K’s idea,” Damori recalled.

They held the circus in Parkside Elementary School’s gym in the early years, using a record player for the songs. For Damori, the circus premiered in her first year teaching in Powell, and she was actively involved every year until her retirement in 1999.

Carter began teaching at Parkside in 1978, but her
involvement started the year before when she did her student teaching and helped with the second-ever circus.

Those early events were pretty simple, Carter said, but eventually it grew into “a full-blown circus.”

“We got more sophisticated as the years went on,” Damori said.

‘A culminating event’

Damori described the circus as “always lots of fun.”

“It’s absolutely unique to Powell,” Carter said. “... I have never heard of a school doing it, especially to the degree we have.”

In her years as an educator, she attended workshops and belonged to Facebook groups for kindergarten teachers, but none of the other instructors organized a circus like Powell’s.

“Most of them thought we were crazy when we talked about it,” Carter said.

While the circus is full of fun and entertaining moments, it’s also educational. Kids learn how to perform in front of a large audience, Carter said, and also learn the behavior needed for that kind of event.

Since kindergartners from all three elementary schools come together to perform, “they learn how to get along with others that they’re not familiar with,” she said.

The circus helps teach kids how to cooperate, stick to a schedule and follow directions.

“I would never ever want to try doing that [circus] at the beginning of kindergarten,” Carter said. “You have a year of learning — they have to listen and follow directions and it’s kind of like a culminating event of what those kids have come to be able to do after a year. They come in as babies, and they leave as little students.”

As a kindergarten teacher, Carter loved seeing lightbulb moments with her kids and celebrating their successes. The circus helps kids feel good about themselves, she said.

“They got the admiration of the audience ... the applause and acceptance and it was just wonderful,” she said. “And all the kids, no matter their disability or anything else, got to participate. We never let anything hold them back.”

There was never much sleep the night before the circus, Carter said, as students and teachers alike anticipated the big event.

“It was just magical,” she said.

Carter retired eight years ago, and she hasn’t been able to go to a Kindergarten Circus since then. “I just know I’d sit there and cry,” she said.

Longtime Powell educator Steve Bailey’s involvement in the circus started around 1977 at Parkside and continued for 35 years. Eventually, the circus moved to the Powell Middle School gym.

Bailey remembers “standing behind the little darlings and looking out in the stands” and whispering to each other about who was going to receive the culminating pie in the face.

“Then Judy DeBock would chase Virginia Damori up and down the stands before smacking someone,” Bailey recalled. “Luckily neither of them or the pie recipients were ever hurt.”

Damori remembers all those years of running through the bleachers.

“Oh, we did have fun,” she said.

It became a tradition for teachers and helpers to go out to lunch right after the circus: Clown costumes required.

“Yes, yes, yes — absolutely,” Damori said.

As former students grew, graduated and eventually started their own families, educators taught the next generation. Parents sometimes requested a certain part for their child, Carter said, since they still had the costume from their own circus.

“It’s just a major event in their life,” she said. “And some of the kids talked about it on the first day of school. They’d say, ‘When are we doing the circus?’”

Hopefully next year.