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State Fair rodeo stunt draws bipartisan concerns

(Photo above from Show Me Progress)

ST. LOUIS — An event at the Missouri State Fair Saturday raised some eyebrows at the time and received a large amount of commentary Sunday after left-leaning blog Show Me Progress posted about what happened and the story unfolded.

“Just prior to the start of the bull riding event, one of the clowns came out dressed in this,” Perry Beam posted on Facebook — included in the blog post — along with a photo of a rodeo clown dressed as President Barack Obama. “The announcer wanted to know if anyone would like to see Obama run down by a bull. The crowd went wild.”

The blog post continued, as did the story about what happened and accompanying input from citizens and elected officials who were upset about what occurred.

Eli Yokley, PoliticMo Editor in Chief, was the first to report a response from the Missouri State Fair on the event:

“The performance by one of the rodeo clowns at Saturday’s event was inappropriate and disrespectful, and does not reflect the opinions or standards of the Missouri State Fair,” spokeswoman Kari Mergen said. “We strive to be a family friendly event and regret that Saturday’s rodeo badly missed that mark.”

Additionally, it was discovered that the announcer during the event was Boonville School District Superintendent Mark Ficken, who told Missourinet Monday morning that the voice actually was the rodeo clown, not Flicken.

A video of the event is available on YouTube from the Kansas City Star’s Yael Abouhalkah.

The events drew large amounts of criticism via social media, including some requests from some elected officials for action to be taken against the person responsible. The Missouri Times will add more tweets to this post periodically.