Rocking Roosters Celebrate Five Decades Of Dance

By Nancy K. Crevier

The Rocking Roosters Square Dance Club will celebrate 50 years of toe-tapping fellowship at a special dance, November 4, from 8 to 10:45 pm, at the Edmond Town Hall gymnasium. Guest callers Bruce McCue of Wethersfield and Jack O’Leary of Iowa, well known in the square dance world as the “Silver Sounds,” will be featured at the dance. For the round dancing portion of the evening, cuer Sue Lucibello of Guilford will be calling out the patterns.

The Rocking Roosters will also honor the memory of the late Bob Paris, who served as caller for the group from its inception until 2006. The public is invited to view the dancers as they wheel and whirl through the modern Western style and round dances the Roosters promote, and to share in refreshments.

The Rocking Roosters began half a century ago, when members of the Newtown Congregational Church Couples’ Club organized a demonstration program by square dancers from Bethel. They were so intrigued, recalled longtime member Ellie Sturges recently, that they gathered together enough couples to take a class.

“The first 12 couples to join were Newtown Congregational Church members,” said Mrs Sturges. “Right away, they started looking for more members, and in 1962, offered another class. That was the start of the Rocking Roosters.”

Hugh and Marjorie Humiston, who have been dancing with the Roosters for 44 years, joined Mrs Sturges in her reminiscences.

“The club used to meet to dance at homes in garages, playrooms, and basements,” said Mr Humiston, “and them later in the schools. First we were at Sandy Hook School, then the high school, which was where the middle school is now.”

Working around the school activities became more problematic as the years went by, though, he said, and more than 20 years ago, the group began holding its Friday night dances in the Edmond Town Hall gymnasium.

“It’s worked out well,” said Mr Humiston. “It’s always open to us. It never shuts down, not even for snow,” he declared, remembering that the Roosters actually shoveled their way into the gym one snowy night.

The Rocking Roosters is open to all who love to dance, said Mrs Sturges, and prior dance experience is not necessary.

“I had never danced at all before I started square dancing,” she admitted.

“Hugh was working at Otto Heise as a machinist, and George Metley, who he worked with, kept bugging Hugh to come to the square dancing open house,” said Mrs Humiston.

“I went home and told her one night, we’re going dancing,” recalled Mr Humiston, “and she thought I was crazy. I had two left feet.”

Everyone at the dancing class was so welcoming, though, that the Humistons found themselves quickly enamored with their new hobby. They took lessons in 1966, and in 1967, became members.

All new members must take the lessons that are held from September to June in the Masonic Hall on Washington Avenue. Those classes are taught by Allan Brozek, Mrs Sturges said, the same caller who was her teacher when she began dancing in Oxford in 1963.

“My youngest sister came home with a bit of paper about square dance classes one day. I went, and just knew I loved it, and that was that,” said Mrs Sturges. It was while she was a member of the Oxford dance club that she met her husband, the late Bob Sturges.

“He was already a member of the Rocking Roosters, and had come over to Oxford for a dance,” she said. In the 1960s, said Mrs Sturges, there were many square dancing clubs in the area, and it was common for members of one group to visit another’s events.

“You could dance every night of the week if you wanted to, back then,” said Mr Humiston, and the Roosters held a dance each Friday night of the month, rather than the twice-a-month programs they now offer.

Many Positive Aspects

There are many positive aspects of square dancing, said the dancers. “It is great exercise,” Mrs Sturges said. During the three hours that a dance lasts, she figured dancers move the equivalent of vigorously walking more than three miles.

Square dancing is also terrific for mental agility, said the Humistons. With modern Western square dancing, four couples dance at the same time in a circle. But two couples are doing one step and the other two couples are doing a complementary move.

The Rocking Roosters do what is called Mainstream Plus level square dances. It takes the average dancer about two years to really learn the nearly 100 different calls at that level. Mrs Sturges is in the Advanced 1 level, which requires dancers to learn yet another 50 calls.

“You have to know the calls. You are not actually doing what the caller is saying at the time,” cautioned Mr Humiston. “The caller is usually one call ahead of the dancers.”

Rocking Rooster also offers great camaraderie, said the Humistons.

“You meet people from all walks of life,” said Mr Humiston, noting that doctors, nurses, engineers, machinists, laborers, housewives, and teachers are among those who have been members of the Roosters over its 50-year history. Intermission during the evening allows time for refreshments (“The Rocking Roosters are known for their great refreshments,” boasted Mr Humiston), and being an alcohol-free event, it makes for lots of good, clean fun. “Hardly anyone even smokes, these days,” noted Mrs Humiston, a big change from the original days of the group.

Not only do the members meet for the dances at Edmond Town Hall, many travel together to other dances. They have gone camping together, and have danced on the Becky Thatcher and Tom Sawyer cruise boats on the Connecticut River. They perform for area nursing homes and take part in many parades, including the Newtown Labor Day Parade. They gather for picnics and barbeques, and Hugh Humiston was best man when Ellie and Bob Sturges were married.

“Rocking Roosters is really like having a second family,” Mrs Sturges said.

Wherever they get together to dance, the Rocking Roosters can be picked out by their bright red and white costumes. Women wear dresses with full skirts and crinolines when performing, and the men wear their Western-style dress shirts, decorated with roosters on the shoulders and back. Western-cut slacks (in red for demonstrations) complete the men’s ensembles.

“We try to wear a combination of the colors when we perform. It looks pretty when we are dancing,” Mr Humiston said.

It is that sense of fellowship and fun that has kept the Roosters Rocking going for so many years, said the three dancers, when so many other square dancing clubs in the area have faltered.

“When I started square dancing, there were clubs in Shelton, Danbury, Brookfield, and Oxford, too,” said Mrs Sturges. “Now, I think Cheshire is the closest one,” she said.

They also credit dedicated couples like the late Eileen and Ray Artruc, who were with the club from the first class right through the 1990s, and Noreen and Dan Foley, members since 1964, with keeping the group on track.

“Ray and Eileen were like the encouraging grandparents of the Rocking Roosters, and Dan and Noreen have been very active. It’s couples like them that have kept the Roosters going, talking it up, and getting people excited,” Mr Humiston said.

There have been changes, though, since the Rocking Roosters formed in 1961. From a time when the club numbered 60 couples, membership today hovers around 40 people. Couples do not seem to have the time to commit to the lessons, making it difficult for new dancers to achieve the skill levels they need to enjoy the dances. Five decades ago, said Mrs Sturges, couples did more together, and square dancing offered couples a chance to get out and be together.

“We were originally a couples club,” said Mrs Sturges, “but now we invite singles to attend. A few of us have lost our husbands, so we don’t have regular partners anymore. We can always use more men.”

Many times when the Friday night dance is underway in the Edmond Town Hall gym, people going to and from the movies will stop to watch, said Mr Humiston. The group has even had mothers with babies stop in, “And the babies love the beat of the music. Their little feet are bouncing,” he laughed.

The Rocking Roosters had looked forward to taking part in the September 5 Labor Day Parade, celebrating their 50th anniversary along with the parade’s 50th anniversary. A prior commitment did not allow the group to dance in the rescheduled October 9 parade, though, said Mrs Humiston.

“We were disappointed that we [wouldn’t] be in the 50th anniversary parade,” she said.

Even though current membership is down from earlier years, the Roosters remain positive that they will go on.

“We’ve had a little more interest these past two years,” said Mr Humiston, “and we’ve got some very enthusiastic new members. I think we’ll be around for a good bit longer. It’s been a long and wonderful association,” he said.

For more information on the Rocking Roosters Square Dancing Club, call 203-426-4817 or visit www.RockingRoosters.org.