Mark's Notebook

Oregon honors square dance leader on state quarter

by Hugh Noes, Staff Correspondent

The state of Oregon has selected the portrait of a famous square dancer to appear on their state quarter. They are doing so to celebrate the return of the National Square Dance Convention to Portland on June 22, 2005. The state quarter is being released on June 15.

Thanks to a generous donation by the Portland Oregon Visitor's Association, the NSDC will be able to share this piece of Oregon with registered delegates. Each registration packet will contain one Oregon quarter, along with a brief explanatory note card.

Most state quarter fans look at the wrong side of the coin, the side where bureaucrats use Powerpoint to combine clip-art images of flags, banjos, and birds into insufferable montages of state symbols. In the case of the Oregon quarter, this side consists of a rendering of Crater Lake. This drawing, while better than average for the state quarter series, is really a depiction of a big hole in the ground. This is hardly as scenic as ... um, well ... trying to think of a more scenic Oregon location but coming up blank. Back to that later.

Still, Oregon had the hindsight to select for the "other" side of the coin the greatest influence on square dancing this country has ever known. Few are aware that the "Father of our Country," and our first President, George "Pappy" Washington, was also the one who introduced square dancing into America. After the revolution, he wanted to create a dance form that combined the Schottishes and Quadrilles of the old country, but put a uniqely American stamp on them that would establish the new country's dance identity.

Washington's success was evident in the summer dances he hosted on the large lawn that would eventually become the National Mall. (This was before the Washington Monument was built, of course.) The dances were well attended, and sometimes the hotels could not accommodate the large crowds. In those cases, the President would open the Lincoln Bedroom and other White House facilities for use by the square dancers.

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Last updated Monday 3 August 2009