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Flying High!

PANAMA CITY BEACH- The Florida State University Flying High Circus arrived in Panama City Beach on June 1st to start setting up for the inaugural season of Circus by the Sea.

The group from FSU will be performing six shows a week and running a day camp at Frank Brown Park throughout the summer to teach a younger audience circus skills. The camp ends on August 2nd, so you know these students have a lot going on in the up coming months, so I went out to rehearsals today to find out how tight knit of a group this is.

The FSU Flying High Circus has been delivering jaw dropping entertainment for 60 years, and a select group of Florida State’s finest performers will be in Panama City Beach this summer for the inaugural Circus by the Sea.

While performing might be in their blood, they still deal with the nervousness factor every time.

“It can be shaky, or for the first performance. It comes with it, like performance jitters, but you’re not going to do it in the show if you are not 100% comfortable during practice,” said performer April Brown.

“I think everybody deals with the nervousness a little differently. Just like you have roller coaster people and adrenaline junkies, some people love it, and some people don’t love it so much and just have to really work and get over it,” associate director of the FSU Circus Nate Stapp.

Once the performers get past those jitters, they can let their talent take over, and there is plenty of talent under the big top, because many of these students have athletic backgrounds.

“They all have very different backgrounds. We have a lot of ex-gymnasts, we have ex-divers, we have some dancers, we have some wrestlers, we have runners and we just have some very sporty people,” said Stapp.

“A lot of people have gymnastics or dance background. A lot of the girls have athletic, gymnastics, dance, something like that,” said performer Shannon Calloway.

“I know that there are a lot of people here that were competitive gymnasts, but we have people that have done football, they’ve done wrestling, we have ballerinas and we have people that haven’t done anything that and just said, hey I want to come to a circus,” said Brown.

While the performers might come from different athletic backgrounds, there is one thing that the group must be on the same page with, and that is trust, because when you’re flying through the air that high up, you must be able to trust your partner.

“Huge, it’s huge. I would trust anyone out here with my life and I think everyone else feels the same way. You really develop a family and a bond that I don’t think you can get anywhere else,” said Calloway.

“Its gotta be huge, and it’s kind of one of those things that you just deal with. Trust is something, like it is there, but it’s not something you constantly have to think about,” said Brown.

Normally they start their routines up way high, but sometimes they wind up where I am, and that’s why they don’t take themselves too seriously around here.

“We’re a circus; we’re carnies and small hands, smell like cabbage, the whole thing. We’re all 20-23 college students, at this point we don’t take much in life seriously, especially not the circus,” said Calloway.

“We’re not a professional circus. The role of the circus is to just get these guys interacting and hanging out with each other and that’s pretty much what they do,” said Stapp.

“We’re really mean to each other, if someone came and listened to us talk, they would be like how do you even stand these people, but we like each other,” Brown stated.

MLB Draft

Former Rutherford High School pitcher Brett DeVall was the 40th pick in the 2008 Major League Baseball Draft. The 6’3” 215 lb. lefthanded pitcher was taken by the Atlanta Braves.
DeVall moved to Niceville High School this past year to close out his prep career.

Chipola pitcher, Ryan Chaffee, was selected by the Angels with the 105th pick overall.

Gulf Coast pitcher, Will Smith, was selected by the Angels in the 3rd round, 229th pick.

Chris Berroa- Chipola- Oakland A’s in 11th Round.

Carlos Moncrief- Chipola- Cleveland Indians 14th Round.

Ben Jeffers- Chipola- Milwaukee Brewers 22nd Round.

Moises Montero- Chipola- Cleveland Indians 26th Round.

Edmond Sparks- Chipola- Houston Astros 44th Round.

Posted by on 06/05 at 09:35 PM
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