Thursday, March 28, 2013

Dick Brown Obit (From Jerry Digney)

Brown, Richard Bruce
May 29, 1935 - Mar. 4, 2013
Richard Bruce Brown, 77, of Venice, FL, died on Mar. 4, 2013. Visitation will be held from 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM on Sat., Mar. 9, 2013 at Ewing Funeral Home in Venice, FL. Services will be held at 11:30 AM on Sat., at Jesse Knight Memorial Cemetery in Nokomis, FL. Funeral arrangements by: Ewing Funeral Home.
Born in Washington, DC, he moved to St. Pete in 1954. Richard was a US Army Sgt. during the Korean War, was involved in FL law enforcement on the local and state levels, served as general manager of Ringling Bros. Circus for over 15 yrs. in Venice, and traveled extensively in the US and many foreign countries as booking agent for Ringling before retiring.
He is survived by his daughters, Lynn Plumlee, Sandra Auxier, Tammy Gonzalez, and son, Wayne Brown.
In lieu of flowers please donate to the Humane Society of the US or the local SPCA.

9 comments:

Chic Silber said...


In retirement both Dick & Schwartzie

operated the 2 drawbridges at each

end of Venice Island

Chic Silber said...


That's the 2nd memorial service I'm

missing while I'm up North (sorry)

I had a very good working friendship

with Dick & I liked him a lot

Bob Momyer said...

Dick and I got along fine when I was working with Bill at Clown College although Dick had a "thing" about those "clown thingies"...didn't like the way they messed up his arena. You just had to know when to leave Dick alone. We remained friends after I left and stayed in touch by mail.
Bob Momyer

Wendy Tucker said...

I hope that friends and family who would like to donate in his honour, will NOT choose the Humane Society of the U.S. Only 1% of all the funds they receive goes to helping animals, and they have caused a great deal of aggravation for RBBB shows. If I'm not mistaken, they were one of the organizations to bring Feld Entertainment to trial in 2009. Local animal shelters would be a better tribute to someone who worked for RBBB.

GaryHill said...

I remember when he had a big birthday party for Lynn in the arena and gave her a Ford Mustang..ran Security in Quarters...:)

Chic Silber said...


Yes Gary I remember & his primary

title was General Manager of WQ but

he also ran truck transportation &

security for all of Feld's shows of

that era including the ice shows

Roger Smith said...

Funny tale about Dick went around for years - If either unit of the show was playing a town where Dick wanted to be, a threat against Irvin Feld was called in, and Feld summoned Dick post haste to come provide security. Everyone in Venice seemed to be in on that story.

GaryHill said...

He told us a story of him having to dive into the river in Detroit due to some underhanded deals with the books????:)

Bob Momyer said...

Dick was one of the most animated story-tellers, especially when the story was about the Felds. I think it was his daughter. Lynne. who worked in the office and loved it when we brought our capuchin monkey over for a visit. We have several photos with her, the monkey and my wife.