The first group of men to form the Carrington Clowns was organized in 1958 by Charley Yoder and Ken Wheeler under the sponsorship of the Carrington Fire Department. The personnel at this time were Orvel Baldwin, Bob Durbin, Floyd Engbrecht, Laverne Kollman, and Percy Hambrick.
These fellows were later joined by Marvin Hoye, Ron Hambrick, Melvin Zaun, Harry Hicks, James Dunn, Ernie Steinman, and Forrest Bold. These fellows performed around the state and at many state Firemen conventions.
Later Percy's Five-Spot took over the sponsorship of the group and their assignments increased to the Frontier Day Parade, as well as parades in other communities, School Carnival, and Santa Claus Day.
Rod's Sportsman Bar was the sponsor for the Clowns during the Bicentennial Celebration. Performing at this parade were Rod and Joanne Baaken,
Judy and Wilber Hoehn, Rueben Sebastian and Ron Hambrick
The present sponsor is the Five-Spot again.
The question comes out what is a clown? A simple question, but it really has a complex answer. It takes a special type of person to be a clown. Someone who is willing to take time out from their work to put on silly looking outfits, spend time and energy covering themselves with some sticky, gooey, make-up and then go out to entertain the public. Besides entertaining, they usually have a more important function to perform. If the assignment happens to be a rodeo, the clown is there to protect the riders of the animals from harm by diverting the attention of the animal from the person they have just thrown to themselves so that the rider may get to safety; thus putting their own lives in jeopardy.
What if the assignment is a parade? Here too the clowns have another important job. It is their function here to keep the crowd back so that none will get in the way of the vehicles in the parade and get hurt. They also help to keep the parade moving, thus helping to provide a pleasant sight for the spectators.
Carrington has been fortunate, indeed to have this list of very special people that have done a great job for the community.
Source: A History of Foster County 1983 Page 256