Wheeler the Clown

“I loved those clowns,” says Dave Kelley of Rose Park, Utah. “I always wanted to be one.”

“Those clowns” Dave is referring to are the clowns who visited him in the hospital. Born with spina bifida, Dave has a 90-degree curve in his spine. From the time he was four until he was sixteen, his life was filled with one operation after another. He spent as much time in the hospital as he did at home. Today, Dave, as Wheeler the Clown, has fulfilled his dream, and he performs in the same hospital where he once stayed as a child.

Because of his wheelchair, few people took Dave seriously nine years ago when he started asking how to get into clowning. But that didn’t discourage him. When he noticed a small ad in the newspaper asking for clowns to perform in the Days of ’47 Parade in Salt Lake City, he knew this was his chance. He went to the meeting and took the suggested seminars. “I bought some whiteface makeup, a clown outfit, a wig—and Wheeler the Clown was born,” remembers Dave.

“When I rolled myself down Main Street for the first time as Wheeler, I knew I was addicted. I loved making people laugh.”

Dave has encouraged his entire family to become clowns. His wife, Arlene, also in a wheelchair, becomes Balloonee. Their two children, nine-year-old Frank and five-year-old Clarissa, also don their costumes and join in the fun. Frank becomes Chuck L. Berry, a sad-faced tramp clown, and Clarissa becomes Baby Bubbles, a white-faced clown with a wide smile.

Always ready to take on a challenge, Dave accepts his Church callings willingly. Currently Cubmaster to twenty-five boys, he plans the pack meetings and attends Webelos Woods, Cub Country, and day camp. He even participates on the overnight campouts. Arlene serves as a visiting teaching supervisor.

Rarely without a pocketful of balloons, Dave is ready to clown with or without his costume. One afternoon after a doctor’s appointment at the hospital, Dave noticed a young boy and his mother near the burn unit. “He was bandaged up to his neck,” says Dave, “so I pulled some balloons out of my pocket, blew them up, and twisted them into an animal-figure for him. The boy smiled at me. Then his mother said, with tears in her eyes, ‘That’s the first time he’s smiled since the accident.’ Now, that’s what clowning is all about.”

Dave loves making people laugh as Wheeler the Clown. (Photography by LaRene Gaunt.)