Friday flashback

Need a really cool centerpiece for your next parade? For only $1,200, you can rent the IUPUI/Indiana University Calliope for a truly memorable event, and frankly, that’s a real deal. The storied calliope was built in 1924 as the first such 32-whistle music maker to be installed and played on a riverboat. In the mid-'60s, the calliope was moved from the IUB Department of Theatre and Drama's Majestic, the last showboat to ply the waters of the Ohio and Mississippi, and today, the Calliope is housed in a hand-painted, ornately decorated circus wagon, only the second such transport built in the last 50 years. The IU Alumni Association (IUAA) has been the instrument’s guardian since 1976, when it debuted the calliope in the Indianapolis 500 bicentennial parade. The circus wagon was designed by an IU Herron School of Art professor who happened to be a circus buff, and the IUPUI School of Engineering and Technology returned the boiler system to good musical voice. The rental fee includes an experienced calliopist and a parade-ready trailer. The IUAA also can refer those interested to companies that lease a team of horses to pull the wagon.