DEE LEWELLEN

(316)250-2436

Deloris Willard was born in Sabetha Kansas August 28th in 1945. The daughter of a plumber/farmer her family moved to Wichita in 1955. She didn’t even know that such a thing as a carnival existed when she graduated from Wichita North High in 1963. She spent time in Business College and a year out east before returning to Wichita to work.

Dee spent time as extra help for Macy’s department store during the white sale for two years. At the same time she worked nights at Erdman’s doughnut shop. Then in 1967 she began a ten year career as a hotel night clerk and bookkeeper for various establishments. Dee worked at the Broadview Hotel for eight months, and at the Radison and Ramada until 1977. On New Year’s Eve Dee met Rex Lewellen on a blind date in 1972

The two were married on September 21st 1974. Little did she know how much the carnival would affect her life over the next thirty years.  Dee Lewellen came out on the road for the first time 1977. The first game she ever worked was the hoopla. Dee would also operate the Ferris Wheel on occasion. Dee would be in charge of the bookkeeping for the family company Lewellen Enterprises. In July of 1978 she would be forever stuck with the moniker Momma Dee when she gave birth to the family’s first child David. With Rex occupied by his duties as the head fix-it man on the Ottaway show Dee would over-see the game operation. In 1980 Susan was born and the family operation grew as well.

More games were added and by the end of 1989 the family had six game trailers that housed nine games. During the season the Ottaway Amusements carnival would split to form multiple units. When this occurred Dee would sell tickets for the unit she and Rex would run. When relations began to deteriorate between the Lewellens and the Ottaways in 1990, Rex made the decision to start a new carnival, Dee was excited by the opportunity to help. However the show would not materialize and it seemed that every other year more disagreements with the Ottaway family would lead to the start of a new show.

Dee sent her son David to Texas in the fall of 1999 to buy two rides, this was the vehicle that began the building of Lewellen Amusements. Writing an informative letter she sent out five hundred pieces of mail which would lead to the building of the show’s route. Without her faith in her family and her important contributions the Lewellen Amusements that exists today may not have existed at all. Deloris Lewellen is the most important catalyst for the early stages of the shows development.

Lewellen Amusements