Salem's Shrine Clowns have been bringing smiles to faces of all ages for nearly four decades with everything from brightly-colored hair, big smiles, oversized clothes and floppy feet. Of course some of them take a different approach, with little or no hair, sad eyes, a frown, tattered clothes and worn out shoes.
They all get the job done.
"It's all about the kids," said veteran Salem Shrine Clown Richard Ferranto.
Salem is home to about a dozen Shrine Clowns, the highest ratio of any community in Southwest Missouri.
The official philanthropy of Shriners International and Abou Ben Adhem Temple is the Shriners Hospitals for Children. There are 22 Shriners Hospitals for Children throughout North America, Canada and Mexico, providing advanced care for children with orthopedic conditions, burns, spinal cord injuries and cleft lip and palate.
Shriners Hospitals is a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization. In addition, the International Shrine Clown Association's philanthropy is the Red Sneaker Fund, to provide funds for burn research at the three burn institutes in Boston, Cincinnati and Galveston. The unit also collects can tabs for the Ronald McDonald House in St. Louis.
Shrine Clown Scott Radford said the whole reason for clowning is to promote the good that can be done for children through the Shriners Hospitals for Children.
"If we didn't do this, people wouldn't know about Shriners Hospitals and the valuable services available there for children," Radford said.
Local clowns include veteran Charlie Butler as "Fudd," who started with the unit when it was chartered in December of 1975. Other long-timers include Orbus Shepard as "Dappy," Scott Radford as "Ritz," Richard Ferranto as "Sealbeam," Mike Radford as "Murph," Steve Wisdom as "Wiz," and newcomers Paul Arft as "Poncho" and Randy Kennedy as "Slick."
The Salem clowns are a part of the South Central Missouri Shrine Clown Unit of Abou Ben Adhem Temple, which serves an area from Salem and Rolla, west to around Lebanon. They are among 22 Shrine Clubs in Southwest Missouri, with headquarters located in Springfield.
Radford said locally the unit participates in about 20 events each year, including parades, civic functions, school festivals and fund-raisers.
They've helped raise funds to benefit nearly 2,000 children in Southwest Missouri, and they entertain thousands of children each year. One of the unit's biggest fund-raisers each year is the Abou Ben Adhem Shrine Circus, where they entertain about 28,000 children and adults during the annual event in Springfield.
It takes most of the clowns about an hour to perfect their look. They're a mixture of the five classic types of clowns, whiteface, auguste, character, hobo and tramp, each with their own special characteristics.
"It changes your personality. We're all pretty hammy and clownish when we're dressed in our costumes," Radford said.
The whiteface clown is the aristocrat, the best-dressed of the clowns; the auguste is the wacky, comedic type; character clown is easily identified as a specific character; the hobo clown is happy, down on luck, but moving up; and the tramp clown is a frowning scoundrel type.
The Salem clowns each have attended annual clown schools and have also learned make-up techniques and other clowning skills from other veteran SOCMO unit clowns. Clowns schools in past years have been held in Springfield and Bartlesville, Okla. In April the Salem clowns plan to attend the clown school in Wichita, Kan.
Some of the clown costumes are elaborate, while others have been pulled together from old outdated and tattered clothing rejects.
Some Salem Shrine Clowns compete against other Shrine Temples in competitions each year. The local temple last year took home about nine trophies during the competition held in Overland Park, Kan. The next competition will be in August in Sioux City, Iowa.
For more information about the SOCMO Shrine Clown Unit contact local president Richard Ferranto at 729-3709 or Scott Radford at 247-1882, or for information about Shriners Hospitals for Children visit www.shrinershospitalsforchildren.org.
