Contrary to what some may believe, rodeo clowning is serious business. Beneath the makeup, the wigs and the costumes are athletes whose job is to protect the bull riders. Rodeo fans will have several opportunities to hear first-hand stories from some of the best rodeo clowns from days gone.

Thirty-nine rodeo clowns from 14 different states will gather for a national reunion of rodeo clowns during the 2009 Days of '76 events in Deadwood, July 21-25. These men will be honored for their work through the years.

Reunion chairwoman Gail Woerner of Austin, Texas, said the rodeo clowns, who met last year in Dodge City, Kan., generally hold a reunion every other year. This year, they are deviating from that calendar to fill a special request by the Deadwood Days of '76 Committee.

"We got this request two years ago from Deadwood, so we polled some of our regulars - most of whom are on fixed incomes - and they all said 'yes,'" Woerner said. "They were ready to go back." Deadwood hosted the rodeo clowns' 2002 reunion.

Lee Harstad, marketing director for Deadwood Area Chamber of Commerce, said he is excited to have the clowns come to town.

"We're looking forward to it. It's going to be a great addition to the Days of '76," he said.

In addition to participating in the rodeo events and both of the parades, the rodeo clowns will attend a mixer at 5 p.m. Tuesday, July 21, at the Mineral Palace.

"It's an opportunity for the public to come out and visit and listen to some of the stories the rodeo clowns have," Harstad said. "They have a lot of them."

The clowns also will meet at 7 p.m. Wednesday, July 22, for a campfire gathering at the High Plains Western Heritage Center in Spearfish. There is a $5 admission charge to the center.

Peggy Ables, executive director of the center, said Woerner will emcee the program, and audience members will have a chance to ask questions.

Ables said about one quarter of the clowns are from the five-state region, with some coming from as far away as New York and Florida.

Jerry Olson of Belle Fourche will be one of them. Olson, of the famed four-generation Olson family specialty acts, got his start with his father performing acts that included buffalo riding, mule acts, a Roman riding routine and other types of trick riding. He tried his hand at bullfighting in the 1950s, and a decade later, he was considered one of the best rodeo clown bullfighters.

"In my time, the hierarchy was the clown, the barrel man and the bullfighter," Olson said. A bullfighter often doubled as a rodeo clown, he said. "Now the bullfighter is not a clown. He's there to protect the cowboy and that's about all."

Olson said he is looking forward to visiting with his old friends, including Jimmy Schumacher of Las Vegas. "He's one of the best barrel men in rodeo," Olson said.

Schumacher was a barrel man for 23 years and had worked the Days of '76 rodeo in the past. He is responsible for taking the bottom out of the original barrel as a means of escape for the barrel man.

He holds the patent on that design.

Jim Aplan of Piedmont said he has not seen Schumacher since they worked together in the 1950s, and is also looking forward to seeing him. Aplan was a bullfighter, whose job was to lure the bull to the barrel.

"Most of the bullfighters today are kind of an elite group," he said. "They protect the riders, but they don't have to do so much of the acts as we did."

He said bullfighters from his era had to have their own jokes. Today it's usually the barrel men who have the acts and not the bullfighters, he said.

"We really envy the guys today. We're amazed at what they can do, too. You always look back at your younger days and think 'I could have done that if I'd only had this or that.'"

During the 1950s, Aplan was in the pro ranks for nine years and a clown for four. He said today's clowns are highly trained athletes.

"They do a superb job. They can actually out run the bulls, which I never could." He said most of the training in his day was done in a bar after the rodeo. "Now they don't even drink," he said.

When Aplan was bullfighting, the smaller the rodeo, the more he had to do. The bigger rodeos hired extra acts, he said.

"We were pretty busy. We had to go between every event. If the rodeo was going slow they'd call us to get out there and do something. So at a moment's notice you had to come up with something and try to make it humorous," he said.

Bullfighters today also get to wear padding.

"We had no padding whatsoever," he said. "Some of the men in the barrel wore some padding, but very little. Not like they wear today."

Even though most of the men attending the reunion have been retired for some time, Aplan said some of them wanted to reunite with a bull as well, but the committee turned them down.

"A young guy wants to face the bulls. A middle-age guy would just as soon not face them, and an old guy thinks he can face them again."

However, because of the insurance, he said, it's just not possible.

Aplan said he sustained injuries from the rodeo, but never from bullfighting.

"I'd been run over, knocked down, tossed in the air, bruised and battered around a lot. I guess I was lucky the bulls didn't get me," he said.

It wasn't the risk of injury that had him hang up his bullfighter's baggy pants and rainbow suspenders.

He said he left the business mainly because Pampers hadn't been invented yet.

"I started to have a family and traveling with small children, in those times, we had cloth diapers. That was quite an experience to be on the road with small children and no disposable diapers," he said.

He also traveled with a horse and a mule that were part of his clown acts. "As my family was growing, I thought maybe I ought to look to be doing something else."

He said the rodeo clowns have fans who turn out to see the men and to hear their stories.

"They like to be around the clowns. They remember seeing us 50 years ago, and people we met then come back to see us now," he said.

He expects to see some of those loyal followers during this year's reunion, as does Peggy Ables.

"They're some neat guys. It'll be a lot of fun," Ables said. "If you can't be entertained by 39 rodeo clowns, then you're not looking for a laugh."