Carnival & Fair News

According to Luke Linderman of the Great American Entertainment Company, his parents, Dave and Dianne Linderman, developed their love of animals many years before the popular petting zoo attraction began appearing at fairs and events.

“My mom and dad came into possession of a rundown wildlife park called Noah's Ark in Selma, Oregon. There were lions, deer, goats of all kinds, and other domestic animals. They purchased it from an older woman before she passed away, and they spent a long time fixing it up and turning it into quite an attraction. Along with the zoo, my dad built a café called the 40th Day that resembled the inside of a wooden ship, just like Noah's Ark,” Linderman explains.

From there, Linderman's parents began renting exotic cats to the motion picture industry, working on films from Beethoven to Kindergarten Cop with Arnold Schwarzenegger. “Our deer were in the first sequence of the Twilight films,” Linderman adds. Other celebrities entrusted animals to the family for retirement. “Jermaine Jackson had a tiger that he purchased as a cub, and he retired it to my family's park,” Linderman notes.



After some time, however, working with exotic and potentially dangerous animals became exhausting for his parents. They donated the exotic animals to wildlife preserves, where they could receive specialized care, and shifted their focus to domestic animals. This led to his father's creation of a portable petting zoo. “He can fabricate almost anything,” Linderman says proudly. His father took the attraction to a fair convention and secured immediate bookings, and the “Bring the Zoo to You” motto was born.

Linderman notes that while petting zoos were not uncommon, many were subpar. “My parents wanted to bring a clean, warm environment to people at fairs, outlet malls, shopping centers, you name it. It's been 43 years of growing into a massive business.”

The traveling petting zoo has covered significant ground, appearing at events from a major Houston livestock show to fairs in Pennsylvania, and even in Hawaii. “Getting to Hawaii was quite an adventure,” Linderman says. “We had to travel on a commercial container ship and care for the animals onboard for seven days.”

Today, the company operates more than a dozen attractions. In addition to petting zoos and pony rides, Great American Entertainment offers a small children's mechanical ride called the Pig Train, hosts pig races, and presents both the Farmyard Follies educational show and the Gas Car Races. The latter is a multi-species event featuring a chicken, duck, goat, and sheep competing in a comical race. The company also offers Cowboy Boot Camp, which provides hands-on stations where children can interact with animals.



The camp travels nationwide and is guided by the mission of “bringing the farm back to the fair,” encouraging kids to engage with animals through hands-on activities and learn where their food comes from. “A lot of kids don't even know where their eggs come from,” Linderman says.

Linderman explains that the family's attractions create “hands-on magical moments. Kids can feed the animals and get close to them in a clean, family-friendly environment. Sometimes guests tell us they rode our ponies 20 years ago and are now bringing their own children. For some families, we are part of a tradition,” he says proudly.

Today, the company cares for hundreds of animals, primarily farm animals such as sheep, pigs, goats, chickens, and ducks, along with a miniature pony. The Great American Petting Zoo also features wallabies, European fallow deer, and zebu mini cattle.

The animals are not constantly on the road. “We rotate them so they can return to our ranch in Stevensville, Texas, where they can roam freely and live comfortably,” Linderman explains.

In addition to the animal attractions, Dianne Linderman also hosted cooking shows and wrote entrepreneurial children's cookbooks. Dave even built her a live cooking stage set from the front half of a 1944 pickup truck. Sadly, Dianne Linderman passed away last December, but the Great American Entertainment Company continues to operate, bringing animal attractions and cooking experiences to approximately 60 venues across multiple routes from the West Coast to West Virginia.

“We currently have 11 rigs, and we send out several on different routes, whether it's pony rides and petting zoos, or the Pig Train with a photo booth, depending on what a location wants,” Linderman says. In 2020, the company even presented its pig races during the halftime show of the NFL Cotton Bowl Winter Classic in Dallas, entertaining both live audiences and viewers at home.


Regardless of the venue, Linderman emphasizes the company's commitment to quality. “We pride ourselves on being the cleanest, most family-friendly, and welcoming attraction. We strive to be the best of the best. Many now try to copy us, but,” he adds with a laugh, “imitation is the highest form of flattery.”

Linderman, along with his sister and father, continues to run the company, appearing at major events such as the Houston and San Antonio livestock shows and the National Western Stock Show, among many others. The company is also expanding into visual media. Linderman, a filmmaker, explains, “We are developing a television show titled American Pioneers, and we are also exploring a film about my family's story. The show will highlight modern American pioneers, individuals who embody the spirit that helped build this country.”



It is a spirit that Linderman and his family clearly continue to carry forward.