CLOWNING IS SERIOUS BUSINESS

SIKESTON -- It isn't a question of whether you will get hurt; it is when.

Rodeo clowns chant the words like a mantra -- memories of recent pain still fresh in their minds. Little wonder -- their job is to distract wild bulls while cowboys get away. If it is a choice between the cowboy's life or the rodeo clown's, the clown takes the heat.

Rick Young knows the rules as well as anybody. At 61, he is in his fourth decade of clowning, traveling from rodeo to rodeo across the nation. This week he is in Sikeston for the Jaycees Bootheel Rodeo, which started Wednesday and ends Saturday.

Young calls Tickfaw, La., home, and the clowning bug bit years ago when he attended nearby Louisiana State University. He wanted to be a veterinarian, but after too many weeks away "rodeoing," his advisers suggested he pursue a degree in animal husbandry. Young did, but achieved much more success in rodeo.

He is the 1994 Coors Man in the Can -- the world champion barrel clown. To win, he had to attract bulls to the barrel he hid in, protecting other clowns. Bulls often hook the barrels with their horns and give Young a shaking. Even worse is if they get a horn through the open end.

"You have to be able to take pain," Young said, smiling through white, red and black face paint. "If you can't you won't survive. I've went to rodeos with broken ribs, legs -- you've got to block that pain out of your mind."

Almost on cue, Young's partner, Mike Johnson, started rubbing his sore jaw. The two were at Ramada Inn in Sikeston Wednesday, resting up for their first performance of the week. Johnson, a Poplar Bluff native, took a hit to the face not long ago and has a tooth that needs to come out.

"We don't have much of a dental plan," he joked.

Johnson's father was a stock contractor for rodeos when Johnson was growing up, so the clown was around the business all his life. He got a degree in agribusiness from Southwest Missouri State University, but makes his living from what he learned in clown school.

Johnson, 31, is married and his first child is on the way. Becoming a father may slow him down a little, he said, but he isn't ready to get a day job. His wife is willing to accept that, so far.

Both had a scare in 1991, when Johnson was participating in a Wrangler bull fight, the only event where clowns fight bulls purely for their own benefit. Johnson was in Oklahoma when the bull he drew knocked him out. But he conquered the same animal later while competing in Sikeston.

It seems insane, working for about $30,000 a year and putting one's life on the line weekly, but Johnson and Young wouldn't do anything else. A cowboy may perform for one minute a night, but the clowns work for hours and love it.

"You talk to people in other jobs who say, `One of these days, I'm going to quit this job and move to California,'" Young said. "Clowns never say that; once they get into it they want to stay."

And it isn't all "boots and blood, dust and mud," as the popular Garth Brooks song describes it. Clowns enjoy activities most cowboys don't -- traveling to day care centers, nursing homes and other places to meet people and sign autographs.

Tim Rodgers, a 26-year-old Sikeston man, is nothing short of famous in his hometown for his unique job.

"We do a lot of promotions," he said during a phone interview. "As I'm talking to you, I'm taking off my face from all the stuff today. But I don't mind doing it."