By Sarah Light, staff writer

Colleen Pages isn&8217;t a typical 16-year-old girl.

As a cast member of the traveling Circus Pages, she&8217;s an acrobat, a horse rider, a tiger tamer and a hula hoop artist. And she&8217;s in school too.

&8220;You see tons of things a normal 16-year-old wouldn&8217;t see,&8221; Pages said about her life on the road with the family circus. &8220;No one else wakes up to tigers.&8221;

Her uncle is the ringmaster, her aunt and father are the managers and her grandparents are the owners.

From Sarasota, Fla., she said she hasn&8217;t really known anything other than the circus life. But that&8217;s OK with her, she says.

Albert Leans got the chance to witness the Pages&8217; family circus act Friday as Circus Pages came to town for two shows at the Freeborn County Fairgrounds.

After a performance that included Bengal tigers, aerobatics, dog tricks, juggling, crazy camels, plate balancing, trampoline artists and elephants, parents and children alike left the fairgrounds entertained.

In its 17th year, Circus Pages has drawn from three generations of performing Pages to create a show for all ages. The crew travels nine months out of the year to 250 cities throughout the United States and Canada, often in conjunction with numerous community sponsors, civic organizations, schools and non-profit organizations.

Sisters Emma Blu Jameson, 5, and Ella Jameson, 6, who came to the show with their mother and grandmother, said their favorite parts were the elephants and ponies. It wasn&8217;t the first time for them to see elephants, but it was the first time for them to have a pony ride.

the elephants and ponies. It wasn&8217;t the first time for them to see elephants, but it was the first time for them to have a pony ride.

Mackenzie Glaser, 8, who came to the show with her family, said her favorite part of the show was the clowns.

&8220;They were really funny,&8221; she said.

Though it is smaller than other more well-known circuses, the family circus provides several benefits to a larger circus, Ringmaster James Earhart said.

One of these benefits includes giving audience members the chance to sit closer to the performing animals. At larger circuses, people often have to pay a fortune just to sit in the higher seats, Earhart said.

Because they have a smaller circus, they are also able to own all of their own animals, whereas larger circuses often have to rent theirs, he said.

Originating in Cuba in the 1960s, the Pages family initially started out on the flying trapeze, but has since expanded its talent to include animal training and acrobatics.

For more information on Circus Pages, visit www.circuspages.com.