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Letter to the editor

Hopp's menagerie

Once a mayor in Minnesota, livestock is his livelihood now.

By BEN MONTGOMERY, Times Staff Writer
Published August 24, 2007

Items from Rod Hopp's life as an amusement park owner in Minnesota line the road that leads to his farm, where some 2,000 animals take up residency on the 5-acre property.
	[Skip O'Rourke | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Skip O'Rourke | Times] A metal woman on a trapeze hangs over the goat pen at Rod Hopp's farm in Gibsonton. The woman was part of Hopp's traveling carnival, which spent winters in the town.

GIBSONTON

Every day, people from the great elsewhere make their way to Central Florida. They run from the snow or the police. They chase bleached dreams to the land of sunshine.

Some of them take root in obscurity and their tales bloom on back roads, behind signs that say NO TRESPASSING.

So begins this story.

On the edge of the weathered carnival town that is Gibsonton, beyond a few of those signs, Rod Hopp walks through his menagerie.

He shakes hands with a capuchin monkey named Bobby. He makes eyes at a three-legged goat. He kisses a donkey named Nibbles on the mouth.

"These animals saved my life," he says. "That's the way I see it."

He has some 2,000 animals covering about 5 acres that smell of musty tortillas and dung. His inventory includes sheep, goats, ducks, cows, pigs, bulls, donkeys regular and albino, horses, chickens, roosters, pigeons, turtles, dogs and three monkeys. And flies. Lots of flies.

The decor is creepy midway memorabilia: plywood clown faces in the trees, a metal lady swinging trapeze, a sandwich board out front that says WORLD FAMOUS BLOODY MAMA IS HERE.

"When you're out feeding goats," he says, "there's nothing better than having a gal swinging over your head on a trapeze."

Now, every place has its special citizens, those who converse with street signs or wear sweaters in July.

Rod Hopp is not one of them.

Part of the proof is a phone call away, at City Hall in Savage, Minn., population 25,000.

"He was mayor here from 1980 to '87," says the woman who answers the phone.

"Yep," says Hopp, a fly parked on his face. "Mayor."

This scenario poses several questions. Among them: How did it come to this?

When Hopp was younger, he sold French's mustard to grocery stores. He was good at it, but had dreams of promoting bigger things.

One day he met a lawyer handling a bankruptcy for a man who owned amusement park rides. Hopp bought the rides and started a business that supplied entertainment for company picnics. Soon he built his own park, Family Funways, outside Savage, Minn., and he sent a traveling carnival into the world.

All was good until Hopp took issue with the city of Savage over something-or-other and appeared before its council to practice his civic duty.

Why don't you just go back to your circus, the mayor told him.

Well, Hopp said, setting the stage for a challenge, I think City Hall is a three-ring circus!

In 1979, with 448 votes, Rod Hopp, promoter, entrepreneur, carny, gained a new title: mayor.

But politics can be dangerous.

Months after the election, Hopp was behind bars. Police seized a game called Penny Falls from his carnival. The FBI found that it qualified as an illegal gambling device under Minnesota law.

Gambling episode has mayor hopping mad, read the headline in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Hopp blamed his political foes.

"It was embarrassing," he says.

The incident, however, didn't hurt his career. He was re-elected three times and finally lost in 1987, when his opponent claimed Hopp spent too much time in Gibsonton, where he wintered his carnival.

Out of office, Hopp moved full time to Florida to run a livestock auction he bought on a whim.

As word spread, he found a new and sizable clientele. Most of the customers were from Cuba or the Caribbean islands. Most wanted white pigeons or white goats for some sort of religious ceremony.

A few simply asked for a snip of monkey hair.

And there stood Hopp, smiling and taking their money.

"I don't ask questions," he says.

Two men show up at Hopp's farm asking about animals. Hopp calls for a Spanish speaker mixing feed nearby and asks him to help the men.

The worker takes the order, then runs from pen to pen collecting animals. After a short wait, the men pay for two hens, some ducklings and a turtle, then go on their way.

"That's how it works," Hopp says.

Three years ago, Hopp fell ill. The doctor told him cancer had formed around his prostate. He took pills and shots, but never had time to feel sorry for himself.

He had the animals to tend to, seven days a week.

"If I would have had time to think about the cancer," he says, "I wouldn't be here today."

That's why he kisses a donkey and coos over a three-legged goat and shakes hands with a monkey as the metal lady swings trapeze on the wind.

Thanks to them, when someone wanders past the NO TRESPASSING signs, he can still tell the story of how the ex-mayor of Savage, Minn., wound up in Florida.

Ben Montgomery can be reached at bmontgomery@sptimes.com or (813) 661-2443.

[Last modified August 24, 2007, 07:53:00]