CRIPPLE CREEK CLOGGERS Planning 50th Year!

Mar 14, 2016 at 06:42 am by bryan


It doesn't seem that long ago when Steve Cates started a Kitrell 4-H project that focused on square dancing. That was 1967, and now almost a half-century later the group has become worldwide ambassadors for our community. The Cripple Creek Cloggers host foreign troupes here with the International FolkFest each summer. They too spread Rutherford County cheer in distant places.

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Golden Anniversary

A planning committee has been formed and a tentative date of Saturday, March 25, 2017 has been set for celebrating the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Cripple Creek Clogger organization.

Through social media, personal contact, and media, attempts are being made to contact all previous members of this group, which began in 1967 as the Kittrell 4-H Square Dancers. In 1968, the name was changed to Rutherford County Square Dancers and in 1980, adults, many of them former members of the younger group, called Cripple Creek Cloggers, became a part of the organization.

Cates reminisced, "The troupe made their first out-of-state trip in 1968 to the National Folk Festival in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 1973, they were selected by the Readers Digest Foundation as Ambassadors of Friendship to tour and perform in Romania for three weeks. Their first participation in an international folkloric festival was in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1977. Following their travels to festivals in Europe in 1979 and 1981, they organized International Folkfest, the first festival of its type in the U.S., which they still host."

Purpose

Still maintaing their goal to help preserve Appalachian-style square dancing with a clogging step, the troupe meets weekly. All interested persons are invited to participate. There is no charge and no previous dance experience is necessary. Dancing to old-time music, they perform in costumes traditional to the early 1800s in Middle TN, especially designed by Estelle Ansley Worrell of Nashville. Current members reside in Davidson, DeKalb, Bedford, Cannon, and Rutherford counties. Steve Cates, founder of the group, is still the director.

2016 International FolkFest

In 2016 the troupe will represent the U.S. in three international folkloric festivals in Normandy and Brittany (France) during June 30-July 16. Their guests for the June 12-19 International Folkfest will be twenty-member folk dance and music troupes from Czech Republic, Germany, and Puerto Rico. Cripple Creek Cloggers will perform at 7 p.m. on Friday, April 1, at Broadmore Senior Living, with Uncle Shuffelo and His Haint Hollow Hootenanny. At 10 a.m. on April 23, they will join the band UPtown Country at Cannonsburgh's Pioneer Days.

For more information, write to RCSDCCC50th@gmail.com or see the facebook page, "RCSDCCC Reunion Party". Members of the Planning Committee include Troy Bell (archivist), Sandra Elgin Maxwell, Jane Elrod, and Leslie Linebaugh.

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