History

This is the story of the birth of the River Ramblers Square Dance Club.

Betty & Dave Bickham and Dick & Jean Lee danced in Brevard County during the early 1990’s.  During the course of the next 5 years they moved to Putnam County and drifted away from square dancing.  However,  in 1997 they decided to brush up on their square dancing and took lessons in Flagler County.  During the Spring of 1998, they decided that Putnam County needed a square dance club that danced every week.  So,  they talked Ernie Rollen into calling the square dance and Frances Rollen into teaching line dancing.  They contracted with a dance hall and advertised the opening on April 9, 1998.  That night, Betty, Dave, Ernie, Frances, Dick and Jean went to the dance hall, set out snacks and waited and waited for someone to show up.  To our delight, we ended up with 1 ½ squares.   We awarded all those at our first dance with a Pioneer dangle.   With those people, we established a class, which we ran through the summer and graduated in September.  During the course of that time, on occasion, we had two squares on the dance floor. At graduation the new dancers had a great time wrapping Ernie in toilet tissue to earn a Mummy dangle.  We had some faithful Angels that were awarded the Angel dangle.  We have graduated at least a square every year since.