Circus Kirk   holds a unique place in circus history as first – and during its years on tour the only – three ring, touring, tented circus in which every cast and crew member was a high school, college or university student. Circus Kirk traveled for nine seasons (1969 – 77) and was all the dream of one man, Dr. Charles W. "Doc" Boas.

Dr. Boas was trained as an educator, but left the teaching profession for several years in the mid 1950’s to tour with shows such as Carson & Barnes and Sells & Gray, learning all aspects of the business. His real ambition, though, was to have his own circus.

While a professor at York College in Pennsylvania in 1958, Dr. Boas located a small farm in nearby East Berlin and opened his winter quarters. The work of building a circus from scratch involved the construction of props, rigging, seating, tents and related equipment as well as restructuring vehicles to haul apparatus or act as sleeping units. Soon the entire Boas family was putting their lives into the circus. The result was the Boas Bros. Circus, a small tented circus that played central Pennsylvania in the summer of 1968 and was a forerunner of Circus Kirk. On a modest budget, the Boas family pulled the one-ring show through two months of summer touring and got it "back in the barn" (a common circus phrase from mudshow days when farmers-turned-managers literally stored their show props in their barns).

During the winter of 1969 Dr. Boas met with the Rev. L. David Harris, an Evangelical United Brethren pastor in Philadelphia and a circus fan who shared Doc’s vision. He recommended that Boas talk to the Central Pennsylvania Synod of the Lutheran Church in America (LCA): It might be interested in helping to support a circus as a summer youth project.

The Youth Ministries Division of the LCA liked the idea of Circus Kirk. The division, in effect, "sponsored" the first summer tour by loaning the project some money to get it started. The Rev. Robert (Bob) Alexander was assigned as show pastor and church liaison.

There was never a mandate from the church indicating that Circus Kirk be anything more than a summer project that showed a healthy group of hardworking "kids" as an example to cities across America. Indeed, Doc Boas was adamant that the purpose of Circus Kirk was not, and would never be, to "witness in the center ring." Circus Kirk was to be exactly what the name implied – a circus. Unfortunately, the show’s "mission" was unclear for years because of the other half of the circus’s name: "kirk" is a Scottish word meaning "church."

Nevertheless, during the first season of 1969 (as described in Carl T. Uehling’s book Blood, Sweat & Love), Circus Kirk did close with a finale that included a parade of banners touting such slogans as "Peace," "Love" and "Celebrate Life." In addition, Circus Kirk presented several clown sketches with "morals," circus style parables. One routine had two dissimilarly dressed sets of clowns building a bridge of paper plates through the center of the ring. The two groups of clowns fought over control of the ring, discovering that only through cooperation would they be able to "bridge a ring of brotherhood."

An early decision of Dr. Boas was that, other than those in his own family and the other adult sponsors, all members of the Kirk cast were to be currently registered college or university students. (In later years, this was amended to include some high school students with exceptional circus skills.) His call for performers brought in responses from students as far away as New Orleans (such as first and second season Ringmaster and trapeze artist Jeb Bourgoyne), as well as artists from the Wenatchee Youth Circus in Oregon. Eventually, a cast and crew of 35 took to the road in a one-state three-month tour.

In spite of Circus Kirk’s aspirations, however, it was not yet a fully professional circus. Few of the students involved had true circus talents; rather, they had performance abilities that could be adapted to the circus ring. College gymnasts were transformed into acrobats. Theater majors became clowns. Until joining the Kirk as roustabouts, many crew members were unfamiliar with exotic tent rigging.

Also, none of the Kirk cast had ever endured the demands of rising before dawn, driving 50 to a 100 miles or more to the next town, raising the tents, setting rigging and props, doing two shows and tearing down by midnight, only to start the cycle of one-nighters again the next morning.

One of the weapons used most often to fight depression, frustration and burnout was frequent ring curb meetings, in which the company would sit around the curb of the center ring and discuss the show and interpersonal problems. Part group therapy and part motivational seminar, the meetings did much to alleviate stress.

Another natural device to ease tension was the ever-present sense of humor, often found in the most unlikely places. Every day the donniker, or portable toilet, seemed to boast a new sign. During the run of the season such scatological gems as the following appeared: "Reserved Seats"; "Pay Toilet – Deposit 10 Cents in Slot"; "Please Don’t Overload for a Brighter, Cleaner Wash"; and "Do Not Throw Cigarette Butts in Toilet – They Get Soggy and Wet and Are Hard to Light."

The rolling stock of the first season was a veritable cacophony of vehicles. Their infamous donniker was a wood-framed oil drum pulled by the Boas family station wagon. A potato chip delivery truck became the advance wagon for the 24-hour man. One of the more creative conversions was turning old school buses, rigged with bunks and painted a bright silver to reflect heat, into sleeping quarters for the cast.

In its first season Circus Kirk achieved its goal – to prove that young people of different races and creeds could work and live harmoniously under seemingly impossible conditions. To relate this historically to the "outside" world, one has only to remember that 1969 was also the year of the first Vietnam War draft lottery.

Circus Kirk had forerunners in the field of youth circuses, but none was a touring show. The Wenatchee Youth Circus in Oregon operated as an open-air show, although Sarasota High School’s Sailor Circus did work under canvas. Both had short runs over a few weeks, however, and usually performed in only one location. Florida State University had its "Flying High" Circus, founded by Jack Haskin (d. 28 April 1993), which did not travel. The annual Circus Week Festival in Peru, Indiana, encouraged the participation of youngsters from the town, but the Circus City Circus did not tour. As a result, most circus mavens felt that Kirk’s success in 1969 could be attributed more to luck than skill and openly wondered if the show would reopen in 1970.

The second season began with an enlarged cast and a tour schedule from June 26 through August 29 that encompassed three states, adding Ohio and Maryland. A flow chart of department heads showed the new organization: North American Operating Co., Inc. (Dr. Boas, owner) and the Lutheran Church in America (Rev. Jim Percy, 1970 pastor/liaison) were now the co-directors of Circus Kirk. Boas was circus manager of six departments (band, business, operations, front end (midway), back yard, performance), each with its own head. Boas was also manager of operations, with Larry French as superintendent, who in turn was responsible for the seven other departments on the lot – the Big Top, the sideshow, the ring stock, props, electrical, the cookhouse and transportation. In addition, the Kirk front end carried two independent concessionaires, Len Knapp (the Reptilerama snake show) and Gene Earl (butcher). The work details, which relied on town boys acquired by local sponsors to supplement labor, showed 14 assigned to the Big Top, four to the sideshow and two to the cookhouse.

The final program and running order of the 1970 Big Top show was representative of all of its seasons: Overture, Fanfare, Opening Spec, Swinging Ladders, Magic Act, Clowns, Tumblers, Clowns, Still Trapeze, Clowns, Juggling, Animal Menage, Plate Spinning, Clown Band, Low Wire, Clown Walkaround, Animal Fantasy, Fire Baton Juggling, Spanish Web, Clown Stop, Balance Beam, Trampoline, Ascent of Incline Cable, Finale Parade.

By the middle of the 1970 season, an unfortunate financial reality had become obvious. The enormous setup costs for each season were constant whether the Kirk stayed out one week or 50 weeks. Certainly there were daily operating expenses such as salaries, gasoline and meals – in the ’70 season the daily nut was $750 – which ended when the show closed; but many of the costs, such as insurance, vehicle registration, tent and prop purchases and office expenses were either ongoing or annual fees. Since at that point the performers’ salaries were minimal ($50 per week), an extended season would go a long way toward amortizing those yearly expenses.

Midseason, Doc Boas announced a postseason tour of one additional week. A revised running order – for those cast members who did not have early university starts and could remain with the show – included a clown baseball sketch, a coloring book pitch, the rolling globe, a solo tramp clown juggler, a single Spanish web, a comedy balance beam act and corporate sponsor announcements. This was the first of several attempts the Kirk made over the years to try to generate additional revenue.

The 1971 season toured the same states with a cast of 40 in 73 towns. They gave 146 performances from June 7 through September 4. Finally, the Rev. Harris, so important in the creation of Kirk, was assigned show pastor by the LCA. At the end of the season, rather than continue the entire show for additional days, Boas decided to repackage just the Circus Kirk sideshow as a carnival ten-in-one (an enlarged sideshow that offers ten acts for one admission price).

For seven days (September 5-11, the Kirk sideshow played the Juniata County Fair in Port Royal, Pennsylvania, with four members of the Kirk cast, augmented with one new showgirl, or bally broad. Set up at one end of the fairgrounds, the sideshow was a ten-in-one in name only, because it only featured the same eight acts seen on the Kirk tour (Magic, Ventriloquism, Punch & Judy, the Human Blockhead, a Snake Charmer, a Fire-eater, an Escape Artist and the Sword Box). The performance schedule was no longer two a day. The grind was constant, and a new bally was delivered whenever there were enough people to draw a tip. The extension was not financially successful, and at week’s end the tent was packed up in the rain for the barn.

Rain was not uncommon on the Kirk – indeed, on any mud show. The first postseason Circus Kirk Route Book (published in 1972 by newcomer business manager James Kieffer, later on the volunteer board of directors at the Circus World Museum) showed that rain fell on the Kirk for a quarter of its 86 days on the road, with 10 rain dates out of its first 15 days alone.

In fact, 1972 was memorable for the Kirk, as it was for all shows touring the northeastern United States that summer, as the year of Hurricane Agnes. Circus Kirk had endured wind and rainstorms before, and the crew had all been taught to guy out the tents in the case of a midshow John Robinson. All of the veterans remembered the sideshow tent blowdown of July 4^th the previous year, but no one was prepared for the fury of Hurricane Agnes.

Rain began to fall on the show at suppertime on June 20 in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and continued throughout the evening. The next morning Kirk made a short jump to Elizabethtown and, after a lot change, set up on a school athletic field in a valley. Rain poured throughout the day; but sellout crowds defined the storm, providing two strawhouses. By tear down, a nearby creek had overflowed its banks; the water drained down onto the field, adding to the unrelenting downpour. When the tops were dropped that evening, the canvas sank completely beneath almost a foot of water.

Years later, Doc reminisced that his real concern that night was not for the equipment. The fact that lights, provided by the Kirk’s own generator, had to remain on throughout tear down meant that there was a constant, though unvoiced, real danger of electrocution at all times.

By the next morning, swirling water had surrounded the trailers that had not driven or been pulled off by bulldozers; rain fell throughout the day, causing the worst area flooding in 30 years. When the storm finally abated, the Kirk had lost almost a week of dates, many of which could not be made up in the show’s short summer schedule.

Despite this hardship, things had improved in several important areas in 1972. Virginia was added to its June 9 – September 3 tour, for a total season distance of 2,835 miles. The cast and crew neared 50, including a full-time nurse, an 11-piece band, seven sideshow performers and an eight-member clown alley. The buses were retired and, for the first time, the truck fleet included four tractor-trailer semis, two of which became sleepers. The show had grown to boast a bale ring big top with a 60-foot round and three 30-foot middles and a 30-by-70 push pole sideshow top.

The biggest change, however, was the break from the Lutheran Church in America. As late as January 1972, discussions were being held to move the show’s jurisdiction from the Central Pennsylvania Synod to the Commission on Youth Activities of the LCA through its Philadelphia office. Negotiations did not result in any agreement; and, when the church loan was recalled, Kirk opened its 1972 season without church affiliation.

The Kirk had become increasingly secular with each year, having long abandoned "morality" clown sketches; but now even the finale banner parade was dropped in favor of a "Salute to Our Country," with the cast brandishing red, white and blue flags as a giant American flag was unfurled over the center ring. Although still a Sunday School show according to circus jargon, Circus Kirk was no longer literally a "church show." Dr. Charles W. Boas finally had fulfilled his dream; in spite of its student-age performers, Circus Kirk was a professional show.

Circus Kirk opened its 1973 doors early on May 20 and toured for 15 full weeks, closing on September 3. Delaware and West Virginia were added to its list of seven states, and a new 40-foot middle replaced a center section of the big top. Road stock inventory showed six semi-trailers. With Doc Boas’s time increasingly being taken up with routine and business needs, Stu Levens, the big top boss from the first Kirk season, was brought in as general superintendent. More and more, despite the age of its performers, Kirk became accepted in the circus world as a "real" circus.

Following the 1973 tour, Boas once again attempted to extend the season. He reframed the top as a one-ringer and sent it on a southern tour as Boas Bros. Circus – resurrecting the old name. Traveling with a cast and crew of 19, the new show toured from September 7 until October 27, going as far south as Lillington, North Carolina. The tour was not financially successful, and Kirk did not attempt another "southern tour" again until its final season in 1977.

By 1974 Circus Kirk was billing itself as "The All-American All-Student Show," touring six states and giving over 180 performances from May 25 through Labor Day. For the first time, the tour route was expanded into New Jersey and southern New England.

In 1975 the Central Pennsylvania Synod of the LCA reestablished ties with Circus Kirk, assigning a chaplain to its "summer youth project." By then, the new tone of Kirk was set; the show’s program did not allow for parable sketches or parades of banners proclaiming universal brotherhood.

By 1976, for the Bicentennial Edition of Circus Kirk, the LCA was no longer affiliated with the show. Circus Kirk made history again that year when it became the first full tented circus to play on Martha’s Vineyard. The entire convoy of trucks and equipment was ferried across to the island off the coast of Massachusetts to an enthusiastic response by the summer residents.

During much of 1976 and all of 1977 Dr. Boas was unable to tour with the Kirk for medical reasons; the show’s financial woes, aggravated by its short season, escalated. In 1977 the decision was made to attempt a grand southern tour and continue Circus Kirk beyond its traditional Labor Day weekend closing date.

This extension had a twofold purpose: The primary objective was, of course, to close the show "in the black" with enough capital to continue operations into 1978. The "inside" word was that, because of Doc’s health and the continuing money problems, Circus Kirk was on its last tour. The closer the Kirk got to Florida – the home for many in the circus industry – the more likely it would be to find a potential buyer.

Circus Kirk closed for the last time in early November 1977 in Florida, and the equipment was brought back to its quarters in East Berlin. Shortly thereafter, the North American Operating Company, the parent corporation of Circus Kirk, filed for bankruptcy; the following year a private investor purchased all of the Kirk inventory for approximately $45,000.

The legacy of Circus Kirk continues, however, as over 24 of the 500 veterans of the show went on – at least for a time – to professional circus or other performance careers. The last Kirk Big Top was still in use as late as the summer of 1989, when it was destroyed in a blowdown in Texas.

In September 1989 a reunion of the assembled casts and crews of the nine seasons of Circus Kirk met in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, which is close to the show’s original home. Dr. Charles W. Boas was honored there for his contributions to the American circus by the Circus Fans Association of America as well as by the State House of Representatives (which declared Labor Day 1989 as "Dr. Boas Day"), the Governor of Pennsylvania and the President of the United States."

Circus Kirk   holds a unique place in circus history as first – and during its years on tour the only – three ring, touring, tented circus in which every cast and crew member was a high school, college or university student. Circus Kirk traveled for nine seasons (1969 – 77) and was all the dream of one man, Dr. Charles W. "Doc" Boas.

Dr. Boas was trained as an educator, but left the teaching profession for several years in the mid 1950’s to tour with shows such as Carson & Barnes and Sells & Gray, learning all aspects of the business. His real ambition, though, was to have his own circus.

While a professor at York College in Pennsylvania in 1958, Dr. Boas located a small farm in nearby East Berlin and opened his winter quarters. The work of building a circus from scratch involved the construction of props, rigging, seating, tents and related equipment as well as restructuring vehicles to haul apparatus or act as sleeping units. Soon the entire Boas family was putting their lives into the circus. The result was the Boas Bros. Circus, a small tented circus that played central Pennsylvania in the summer of 1968 and was a forerunner of Circus Kirk. On a modest budget, the Boas family pulled the one-ring show through two months of summer touring and got it "back in the barn" (a common circus phrase from mudshow days when farmers-turned-managers literally stored their show props in their barns).

During the winter of 1969 Dr. Boas met with the Rev. L. David Harris, an Evangelical United Brethren pastor in Philadelphia and a circus fan who shared Doc’s vision. He recommended that Boas talk to the Central Pennsylvania Synod of the Lutheran Church in America (LCA): It might be interested in helping to support a circus as a summer youth project.

The Youth Ministries Division of the LCA liked the idea of Circus Kirk. The division, in effect, "sponsored" the first summer tour by loaning the project some money to get it started. The Rev. Robert (Bob) Alexander was assigned as show pastor and church liaison.

There was never a mandate from the church indicating that Circus Kirk be anything more than a summer project that showed a healthy group of hardworking "kids" as an example to cities across America. Indeed, Doc Boas was adamant that the purpose of Circus Kirk was not, and would never be, to "witness in the center ring." Circus Kirk was to be exactly what the name implied – a circus. Unfortunately, the show’s "mission" was unclear for years because of the other half of the circus’s name: "kirk" is a Scottish word meaning "church."

Nevertheless, during the first season of 1969 (as described in Carl T. Uehling’s book Blood, Sweat & Love), Circus Kirk did close with a finale that included a parade of banners touting such slogans as "Peace," "Love" and "Celebrate Life." In addition, Circus Kirk presented several clown sketches with "morals," circus style parables. One routine had two dissimilarly dressed sets of clowns building a bridge of paper plates through the center of the ring. The two groups of clowns fought over control of the ring, discovering that only through cooperation would they be able to "bridge a ring of brotherhood."

An early decision of Dr. Boas was that, other than those in his own family and the other adult sponsors, all members of the Kirk cast were to be currently registered college or university students. (In later years, this was amended to include some high school students with exceptional circus skills.) His call for performers brought in responses from students as far away as New Orleans (such as first and second season Ringmaster and trapeze artist Jeb Bourgoyne), as well as artists from the Wenatchee Youth Circus in Oregon. Eventually, a cast and crew of 35 took to the road in a one-state three-month tour.

In spite of Circus Kirk’s aspirations, however, it was not yet a fully professional circus. Few of the students involved had true circus talents; rather, they had performance abilities that could be adapted to the circus ring. College gymnasts were transformed into acrobats. Theater majors became clowns. Until joining the Kirk as roustabouts, many crew members were unfamiliar with exotic tent rigging.

Also, none of the Kirk cast had ever endured the demands of rising before dawn, driving 50 to a 100 miles or more to the next town, raising the tents, setting rigging and props, doing two shows and tearing down by midnight, only to start the cycle of one-nighters again the next morning.

One of the weapons used most often to fight depression, frustration and burnout was frequent ring curb meetings, in which the company would sit around the curb of the center ring and discuss the show and interpersonal problems. Part group therapy and part motivational seminar, the meetings did much to alleviate stress.

Another natural device to ease tension was the ever-present sense of humor, often found in the most unlikely places. Every day the donniker, or portable toilet, seemed to boast a new sign. During the run of the season such scatological gems as the following appeared: "Reserved Seats"; "Pay Toilet – Deposit 10 Cents in Slot"; "Please Don’t Overload for a Brighter, Cleaner Wash"; and "Do Not Throw Cigarette Butts in Toilet – They Get Soggy and Wet and Are Hard to Light."

The rolling stock of the first season was a veritable cacophony of vehicles. Their infamous donniker was a wood-framed oil drum pulled by the Boas family station wagon. A potato chip delivery truck became the advance wagon for the 24-hour man. One of the more creative conversions was turning old school buses, rigged with bunks and painted a bright silver to reflect heat, into sleeping quarters for the cast.

In its first season Circus Kirk achieved its goal – to prove that young people of different races and creeds could work and live harmoniously under seemingly impossible conditions. To relate this historically to the "outside" world, one has only to remember that 1969 was also the year of the first Vietnam War draft lottery.

Circus Kirk had forerunners in the field of youth circuses, but none was a touring show. The Wenatchee Youth Circus in Oregon operated as an open-air show, although Sarasota High School’s Sailor Circus did work under canvas. Both had short runs over a few weeks, however, and usually performed in only one location. Florida State University had its "Flying High" Circus, founded by Jack Haskin (d. 28 April 1993), which did not travel. The annual Circus Week Festival in Peru, Indiana, encouraged the participation of youngsters from the town, but the Circus City Circus did not tour. As a result, most circus mavens felt that Kirk’s success in 1969 could be attributed more to luck than skill and openly wondered if the show would reopen in 1970.

The second season began with an enlarged cast and a tour schedule from June 26 through August 29 that encompassed three states, adding Ohio and Maryland. A flow chart of department heads showed the new organization: North American Operating Co., Inc. (Dr. Boas, owner) and the Lutheran Church in America (Rev. Jim Percy, 1970 pastor/liaison) were now the co-directors of Circus Kirk. Boas was circus manager of six departments (band, business, operations, front end (midway), back yard, performance), each with its own head. Boas was also manager of operations, with Larry French as superintendent, who in turn was responsible for the seven other departments on the lot – the Big Top, the sideshow, the ring stock, props, electrical, the cookhouse and transportation. In addition, the Kirk front end carried two independent concessionaires, Len Knapp (the Reptilerama snake show) and Gene Earl (butcher). The work details, which relied on town boys acquired by local sponsors to supplement labor, showed 14 assigned to the Big Top, four to the sideshow and two to the cookhouse.

The final program and running order of the 1970 Big Top show was representative of all of its seasons: Overture, Fanfare, Opening Spec, Swinging Ladders, Magic Act, Clowns, Tumblers, Clowns, Still Trapeze, Clowns, Juggling, Animal Menage, Plate Spinning, Clown Band, Low Wire, Clown Walkaround, Animal Fantasy, Fire Baton Juggling, Spanish Web, Clown Stop, Balance Beam, Trampoline, Ascent of Incline Cable, Finale Parade.

By the middle of the 1970 season, an unfortunate financial reality had become obvious. The enormous setup costs for each season were constant whether the Kirk stayed out one week or 50 weeks. Certainly there were daily operating expenses such as salaries, gasoline and meals – in the ’70 season the daily nut was $750 – which ended when the show closed; but many of the costs, such as insurance, vehicle registration, tent and prop purchases and office expenses were either ongoing or annual fees. Since at that point the performers’ salaries were minimal ($50 per week), an extended season would go a long way toward amortizing those yearly expenses.

Midseason, Doc Boas announced a postseason tour of one additional week. A revised running order – for those cast members who did not have early university starts and could remain with the show – included a clown baseball sketch, a coloring book pitch, the rolling globe, a solo tramp clown juggler, a single Spanish web, a comedy balance beam act and corporate sponsor announcements. This was the first of several attempts the Kirk made over the years to try to generate additional revenue.

The 1971 season toured the same states with a cast of 40 in 73 towns. They gave 146 performances from June 7 through September 4. Finally, the Rev. Harris, so important in the creation of Kirk, was assigned show pastor by the LCA. At the end of the season, rather than continue the entire show for additional days, Boas decided to repackage just the Circus Kirk sideshow as a carnival ten-in-one (an enlarged sideshow that offers ten acts for one admission price).

For seven days (September 5-11, the Kirk sideshow played the Juniata County Fair in Port Royal, Pennsylvania, with four members of the Kirk cast, augmented with one new showgirl, or bally broad. Set up at one end of the fairgrounds, the sideshow was a ten-in-one in name only, because it only featured the same eight acts seen on the Kirk tour (Magic, Ventriloquism, Punch & Judy, the Human Blockhead, a Snake Charmer, a Fire-eater, an Escape Artist and the Sword Box). The performance schedule was no longer two a day. The grind was constant, and a new bally was delivered whenever there were enough people to draw a tip. The extension was not financially successful, and at week’s end the tent was packed up in the rain for the barn.

Rain was not uncommon on the Kirk – indeed, on any mud show. The first postseason Circus Kirk Route Book (published in 1972 by newcomer business manager James Kieffer, later on the volunteer board of directors at the Circus World Museum) showed that rain fell on the Kirk for a quarter of its 86 days on the road, with 10 rain dates out of its first 15 days alone.

In fact, 1972 was memorable for the Kirk, as it was for all shows touring the northeastern United States that summer, as the year of Hurricane Agnes. Circus Kirk had endured wind and rainstorms before, and the crew had all been taught to guy out the tents in the case of a midshow John Robinson. All of the veterans remembered the sideshow tent blowdown of July 4^th the previous year, but no one was prepared for the fury of Hurricane Agnes.

Rain began to fall on the show at suppertime on June 20 in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and continued throughout the evening. The next morning Kirk made a short jump to Elizabethtown and, after a lot change, set up on a school athletic field in a valley. Rain poured throughout the day; but sellout crowds defined the storm, providing two strawhouses. By tear down, a nearby creek had overflowed its banks; the water drained down onto the field, adding to the unrelenting downpour. When the tops were dropped that evening, the canvas sank completely beneath almost a foot of water.

Years later, Doc reminisced that his real concern that night was not for the equipment. The fact that lights, provided by the Kirk’s own generator, had to remain on throughout tear down meant that there was a constant, though unvoiced, real danger of electrocution at all times.

By the next morning, swirling water had surrounded the trailers that had not driven or been pulled off by bulldozers; rain fell throughout the day, causing the worst area flooding in 30 years. When the storm finally abated, the Kirk had lost almost a week of dates, many of which could not be made up in the show’s short summer schedule.

Despite this hardship, things had improved in several important areas in 1972. Virginia was added to its June 9 – September 3 tour, for a total season distance of 2,835 miles. The cast and crew neared 50, including a full-time nurse, an 11-piece band, seven sideshow performers and an eight-member clown alley. The buses were retired and, for the first time, the truck fleet included four tractor-trailer semis, two of which became sleepers. The show had grown to boast a bale ring big top with a 60-foot round and three 30-foot middles and a 30-by-70 push pole sideshow top.

The biggest change, however, was the break from the Lutheran Church in America. As late as January 1972, discussions were being held to move the show’s jurisdiction from the Central Pennsylvania Synod to the Commission on Youth Activities of the LCA through its Philadelphia office. Negotiations did not result in any agreement; and, when the church loan was recalled, Kirk opened its 1972 season without church affiliation.

The Kirk had become increasingly secular with each year, having long abandoned "morality" clown sketches; but now even the finale banner parade was dropped in favor of a "Salute to Our Country," with the cast brandishing red, white and blue flags as a giant American flag was unfurled over the center ring. Although still a Sunday School show according to circus jargon, Circus Kirk was no longer literally a "church show." Dr. Charles W. Boas finally had fulfilled his dream; in spite of its student-age performers, Circus Kirk was a professional show.

Circus Kirk opened its 1973 doors early on May 20 and toured for 15 full weeks, closing on September 3. Delaware and West Virginia were added to its list of seven states, and a new 40-foot middle replaced a center section of the big top. Road stock inventory showed six semi-trailers. With Doc Boas’s time increasingly being taken up with routine and business needs, Stu Levens, the big top boss from the first Kirk season, was brought in as general superintendent. More and more, despite the age of its performers, Kirk became accepted in the circus world as a "real" circus.

Following the 1973 tour, Boas once again attempted to extend the season. He reframed the top as a one-ringer and sent it on a southern tour as Boas Bros. Circus – resurrecting the old name. Traveling with a cast and crew of 19, the new show toured from September 7 until October 27, going as far south as Lillington, North Carolina. The tour was not financially successful, and Kirk did not attempt another "southern tour" again until its final season in 1977.

By 1974 Circus Kirk was billing itself as "The All-American All-Student Show," touring six states and giving over 180 performances from May 25 through Labor Day. For the first time, the tour route was expanded into New Jersey and southern New England.

In 1975 the Central Pennsylvania Synod of the LCA reestablished ties with Circus Kirk, assigning a chaplain to its "summer youth project." By then, the new tone of Kirk was set; the show’s program did not allow for parable sketches or parades of banners proclaiming universal brotherhood.

By 1976, for the Bicentennial Edition of Circus Kirk, the LCA was no longer affiliated with the show. Circus Kirk made history again that year when it became the first full tented circus to play on Martha’s Vineyard. The entire convoy of trucks and equipment was ferried across to the island off the coast of Massachusetts to an enthusiastic response by the summer residents.

During much of 1976 and all of 1977 Dr. Boas was unable to tour with the Kirk for medical reasons; the show’s financial woes, aggravated by its short season, escalated. In 1977 the decision was made to attempt a grand southern tour and continue Circus Kirk beyond its traditional Labor Day weekend closing date.

This extension had a twofold purpose: The primary objective was, of course, to close the show "in the black" with enough capital to continue operations into 1978. The "inside" word was that, because of Doc’s health and the continuing money problems, Circus Kirk was on its last tour. The closer the Kirk got to Florida – the home for many in the circus industry – the more likely it would be to find a potential buyer.

Circus Kirk closed for the last time in early November 1977 in Florida, and the equipment was brought back to its quarters in East Berlin. Shortly thereafter, the North American Operating Company, the parent corporation of Circus Kirk, filed for bankruptcy; the following year a private investor purchased all of the Kirk inventory for approximately $45,000.

The legacy of Circus Kirk continues, however, as over 24 of the 500 veterans of the show went on – at least for a time – to professional circus or other performance careers. The last Kirk Big Top was still in use as late as the summer of 1989, when it was destroyed in a blowdown in Texas.

In September 1989 a reunion of the assembled casts and crews of the nine seasons of Circus Kirk met in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, which is close to the show’s original home. Dr. Charles W. Boas was honored there for his contributions to the American circus by the Circus Fans Association of America as well as by the State House of Representatives (which declared Labor Day 1989 as "Dr. Boas Day"), the Governor of Pennsylvania and the President of the United States."