We hope that many square dancers from not only the "lower '48" but from around the world will visit Alaska next summer as well as plan to dance with the Alaskan square dancers. Many times we find that square dancers on packaged tours do not have time in their busy schedules to attend a square dance even though they are in Fairbanks when we are dancing. In fact, we have had square dancers pass our hall, stop by for a minute only to have to hurry on to another planned event for which they have tickets.

The Santa's Swingers Square and Round Dance Club has danced every second and fourth Saturday of the month for over thirty years all year long. And we plan to keep it that way!

So you can imagine our concern when our caller and his taw, Gordy and Linda Oseth, asked for next summer off. You see, Alaskans who live in Fairbanks like to see the rest of the state during the summer too! Our local dancers hop into their RV's and head for the hills, lakes and even the ocean every weekend. We should have seen it coming when Gordy and Linda bought a nice comfortable RV and started to spend their non-dance weekends out of town.

We enjoy dancing to Gordy so we made a deal with him that we would hold our summer regular dances on the first and third Thursdays of the month since he will be in town on those nights. So in the summer of 1999 if you are in Fairbanks on the first or third Thursday nights there will be a Santa's Swingers' dance with our regular caller.

However, the club decided to keep dancing on the second and fourth Saturdays as well as on the first and third Thursday. In this way we are holding a dance every week throughout the summer and besides thirty years of Saturday night dances is a good habit and one we don't want to break!

We find ourselves without a caller for our Saturday night dances as there seems to be a dearth of callers in our local area. We have some amateurs who can do singing calls and who have done some dances but they may not be available either.

Our solution may be found in the classifieds in January issue of American Square Dance. We are hoping that there will be some callers visiting Fairbanks this summer who would enjoy calling a dance for us on a second or fourth Saturday night. We are a very informal club and encourage all square dancers to come and dance with us in tees and jeans or crinolines. It would be nice if you would pack your badge and a pair of dance shoes because they don't take up much room. We welcome singles as well as groups of square dancers to our dances. You may not find a lot of local dancers at our summer dances, but we enjoy all those from around the world. And remember, square dance attire is not required.

http://www.fairnet.org/Agencies/dance/SanSwinhp.html

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