The first weekend in March was made to order as spring fever was in the air in Merced.  The Foys and Pinkneys traveled over the hill to join the traveling Swansons at the Merced Fairgrounds.  The three couples were guests of the Square Samers.  Already there and enjoying the beautiful weather were the Pangborns and Campbells and a little while later Don and Ellen Lewis arrived from up north in Auburn.  Featured callers for the weekend were Deborah Parnell-Jones and Joe Saltel.  On Saturday afternoon we all gathered around the hors d'oeuvres table to eat and visit.  Sunday morning we again enjoyed the hospitality of the Square Samers for a continental breakfast.  A most enjoyable weekend and looking forward to the next one.
Pat & Gayle Pinkney

New Orleans was the festive venue for the Square Hoppers' Mardi Gras hoedown.  Another "out-of-town" caller, Nasser Shukayr, entertained us with his calling and stories.  One tip featured progressive squares, another, a full dose of 'and spread' (try it with coordinate).  Jim Chico again ably cued the rounds and joined in on some harmony in the singing calls.  Nasser gave us a taste of what square dancing would sound like when we dance to 'teenage' music, fortunately the 'call' part was in understandable English.  The winners of the mask contest were picked from our square and were crowned king and queen of Mardi Gras.  To go along with the great dancing, there were plenty of raffle prizes, a door prize, lots of good food, necklaces and balloons for the dancers.  I am sure that the Dawes, Masts and Whites enjoyed the dance as much as we did.
MaryJane & Richard Wegener

On March 2, the Sunnyvale singles hosted a very successful newer dancer's hoedown for September class level dancers.  The callers, Roger Smith and Jake Shimada, did a tremendous job in tailoring a dance suitable for newer dancers and fun for us 'old timers'.  There were dancers there from 15 different clubs and several callers.  The Jokers took home the coffee as the club with the largest representation.  We were delighted that Alan Moore and Ginny Snyder from our Krazy Dazy class attended and thoroughly enjoyed themselves, despite some early misgivings.  We started out having them join us in a square with known 'solid' dancers and progressed to ones with mostly newer dancers.  They even got to do all eight flutter wheel without a hitch.  Roger Smith is always fun to dance to and Jake Shimada, in addition, to being a creative, enthusiastic caller, has a marvelous singing voice.  He even did one song in Japanese, 'try it you'll like it'.  Fortunately, even in Japanese, the calls have 'English' names.   There was a 3-way split the pot and plenty of food and drinks.
MaryJane & Richard Wegener

The 45th annual KrossRoads Squar Rama at the Tulare County Fairgrounds on February 15-17 was a huge success.  With Bob Baier, Texas; Mike Seastrom, California; Kevin Van Vliet, Vancouver, BC and Tim Crawford, Montreal, Quebec calling the squares it certainly had a continental flavor.  The Dawes and Kenfields had a good time dancing all weekend to the plus and advanced calling.  The dancing went through 10pm on Sunday evening.  Of all the hi-lites the Sunday evening all plus singing call dancing done on a wood floor was great with all the callers chipping in on each tip.  They certainly had the building rocking.
Jim and Jan Dawes