Tag: Mitchell Thompson

Hot August Nights: Collaboration at Its Best
My Thoughts · square dance

Hot August Nights: Collaboration at Its Best

Larada Horner-MillerLeave a comment
Hot August Nights Committee, 2024
Hot August Nights Committee, 2024

The 18th Annual Hot August Nights Square and Round Dance Festival is over for another year and I saw collaboration at its best.

First,

The Hot August Nights event, from its inception, has been a collaboration of dancers who love to promote square and round dancing. The present-day committee for this event spans multi-states: New Mexico, Arizona, Virginia, Utah and Idaho. As the committee morphed and changed, we added this multi-state dimension and it has worked.

Second,

We have hired top-notch staff each year and have collaborated with them on a variety of aspects about the event, including them when their schedule allows to attend our Follow-up meeting on Sunday at the close of the festival. Listening to advice from national callers and cuers, we have changed our schedule, honed in on specific details of a successful festival and even changed the location of the logo on the front of our 10th annual t-shirt.

Third,

This year, we collaborated with a local square dance club, Duke City Square Dance Club, to provide a Recycle Shop for our event. We have done it ourselves for many years but gave it up after last year because it became too much of a time-consumer for the committee. When Duke City’s president asked if they could do a Recycle Shop, we agreed and it worked out smoothly.

Fourth,

Our staff this year (like so many other years) collaborated with us in a variety of ways. I had made a mistake on the schedule so Mitchell Thompson, our cuer, reminded me of some time changes we needed to do, and it worked out fine.

Friday night we made a schedule change for the Saturday afternoon square dance program, moving the “High Energy” from last event of the afternoon to start it. I didn’t change it on the website and we had local dancers who missed this fun activity because of the time change. Tony Oxendine graciously added another “High Energy” tip so those dancers had a test of that energetic dancing.

True collaboration works!

Last but not list,

Committee members collaborating! Hot
Committee members collaborating!

The Hot August Nights committee is one of the best committees I’ve ever worked with, and this year I saw it in full action. Because of the dog attack wound I had, I couldn’t do my usual duties, so each one of the committee members took extra care to cover my duties, especially my husband, Lin. The event in my estimation hummed like a well-oiled machine.

Finally,

Dancers, staff and committee at Hot August Nights
Dancers, staff and committee at Hot August Nights

Because of the many facets of collaboration, our dancers had a great time at this Hot August Nights. What a joy it was to see all the smiles, hear all the laughter and listen to Tony’s beautiful renditions of so many beloved songs and enjoy Mitchell’s cuing and Chelsea’s helpful spirit and beautiful dancing!

Update on My Dog Attack:

I went to the Wound Clinic on Thursday. The nurse specialist took off the scab and cleaned the wound thoroughly—OUCH!!!! Then he put on a compression bandage from my toes to my knee. The good news is—NO SKIN GRAFT!

Elevating my leg - Hot
Elevating My Leg A lot!

I tried to elevate my leg during the weekend festival as much as possible, but my ankle and foot kept swelling up—probably too much activity.


On Saturday night after listening to all the dances I wanted to jump up and do, with Lin on my left side and my cane on my right side, I did do a 30 second small-step version of a cha cha of “Irish Washer Woman” and cried because I couldn’t do very much!

The Wound Clinic nurse said I will see him weekly for five weeks, so I’ll see what I have ahead of me!

Podcasts & My Interviews

Audiobooks Sale – August 15 – 31 – 25% Off:

This Tumbleweed Landed

This Tumbleweed Landed audiobook cover

Let Me Tell You a Story 

Let Me Tell You a Story audiobook cover

Hair on Fire: A Heartwarming & Humorous Memoir Audiobook

Hair on Fire: A Heartwarming & Humorous Christmas Memoir audiobook cover

Looking Back—Hot August Nights 2022
Albuquerque · Dancing · My Thoughts · square dance

Looking Back—Hot August Nights 2022

Larada Horner-Miller2 Comments
Hot August Nights banner - looking back

Looking back a week later, I sigh with relief and marvel at the success of Hot August Nights 2022. We hadn’t had this event since 2019. This year, we required the vaccine to attend, so we wondered how many would support it.

Excited, we had eleven squares pre-registered but received emails from dancers telling us they were attending USAWest in San Diego instead of our event. So, in reality, we did not know.

The Recycle Shop Work Beforehand

The saga began the week before the event. Lin came up with a great idea—every time we drove to the dance hall for a club dance, bring a load of clothes from the storage unit for the Recycle Shop. See, our stash had grown over the two and half years we didn’t dance because we kept getting donations.

Duke City Singles and Doubles’ Spring Fling and our event share the clothes for the Recycle Shop, and they sold lots at the Spring Fling, but dancers kept donating since May. Then it took three vehicles to get the clothes to the storage unit near us in Tijeras, NM.

So, on each of the three—four trips, we swung by the storage unit, packed the Tahoe full and completed the last trip on the Thursday before Hot August Nights.

Looking Back at Our Busy Friday

At 9:00 am Friday morning, we started the arduous task of setting up the Recycle Shop with several helpful volunteers. Immediately, we realized we had to purge the over-abundant supply of clothes or we wouldn’t have enough room. We filled six boxes and put those boxes out Saturday morning, free for the taking.

We finished the Recycle Shop, did minimal decorations and enjoyed lunch at one of our favorite restaurants in the area, Millie’s. While we dealt with the Recycle Shop, Lin picked up Mike and Denise Hogan at the airport, so they joined us for lunch—I love these informal times where dancers really get acquainted. It was especially great to have Denise here with us!

Our event opened with a Welcome dance at 3:00 pm. Pre-rounds began at 7:00 pm for the evening dance with Mitchell and Chelsea Thompson. For many years, Friday night’s dance has been a Beach Party with beach balls and casual dress beach attire. This year, the balls flew across the dance floor and Mike and Mitchell had chosen beach music to dance to. What a fun-filled way to begin the weekend.

Looking Back at Saturday & Some Surprises

On Saturday morning, we focused on round dancing. The morning began with an introduction to rounds with the waltz rhythm at 9:00 am, and several couples enjoyed Mitchell’s easy way of teaching. Then at 10:30 am, Mitchell and Chelsea provided a Foxtrot clinic to help dancers move up from a level three dancer to four. Super-informative.

Several dancers began going through the boxes of free clothing. One dancer from Sierra Vista, Arizona, took several garbage bags home for their new dancer class. Such a better way of using the clothing instead of giving them to Goodwill.

Sadly, we canceled our tradition potluck luncheon because our committee member who headed that had to quit the committee. We organized all the round dancers to go to Jimmy’s Cafe, another favorite restaurant near the dance hall, and wanted to sit together, but the group was too big, so we had to split up.

On Saturday afternoon, we focused on square dancing. The afternoon started with Mike Hogan doing singing calls for one hour and we thoroughly enjoyed his gorgeous voice. Then he did a plus workshop for an hour and a half, focusing on calls he noticed we needed help on—thank God! Then he did thirty minutes of high energy and hot hash. He ended the hot hash portion with Lin’s favorite song, “Fisherman’s Luck,” and had the place rocking. We wondered about putting the high energy section at the end of the afternoon, but the dancers jumped in and enjoyed it completely.

Saturday evening began with an hour of pre-rounds with Mitchell and Chelsea—such a wonderful round dance cuer and a wife/partner who loves to dance and jumps in and dances with any single either part.

The evening continued with Mike Hogan and his exceptional calling and Mitchell cuing. A highlight of Saturday night with Mike Hogan always is his rendition of “Pink Cadillac”—this year was no different, but he added help. Mitchell joined him and the crowd went wild.

Looking Back at Sunday & Our Hilarious Shenanigans

On Sunday morning, Hot August Nights has a reputation to uphold with shenanigans galore and Mike added to it. He did progressive squares, Sicilian Circles, and Air Raid. The dancers jumped in and did Scatter Promenade on their own.

We had eleven squares both nights and felt this was a tremendous success after the two-year hiatus. The dance commitment overwhelmed us this year. In 2019, we had twenty-two squares and twenty couples preregistered for 2020 (which was canceled, so we rolled them over). This year with eleven squares, we had twenty couples preregistered, so we gave away two free Hot August Nights registrations and two free room nights at our host hotel. Our Hot August Nights dancers are the best!

Finally,

Looking back, the laughter, the smiles and the hugs from Hot August Nights marked it a success for me more than anything else. Dancers seemed so ready to be out and dancing again.

Have you been to a big dance event recently? How did it go? Did you laugh a lot? Smile? Give and get hugs?

~NEW ONLINE WEBINAR BY ME—Would you be interested in an online class about writing a life story, either yours or someone else’s? I’m planning on doing a webinar in September on this subject. Let me know if you’re interested at larada@icloud.com. Specific information next week.

~WATCH MY NEW INTERVIEW on Douglas Coleman’s show dated August 5, 2022.

~MY FIRST AUDIOBOOK IS AVAILABLE: Go to Audible to buy my first audiobook, Let Me Tell You a Story. I’m working on Coronavirus Reflections: Bitter or Better? but have gotten stalled with shingles.

~Do you listen to podcasts? Here are three podcasts with interviews about my new book & some Flippo stories:

Just Another Square Dance Caller: Authorized Biography of Marshall Flippo meme
There’s still time to grab beach time with Flippo’s e-book!

~Have you bought a copy of Flippo’s biography yet? Believe it or not—it’s been two years. Go here for your hardback or paperback: https://www.laradasbooks.com or at Amazon.

~For me, it’s Christmas all year long! Here’s a variety of Christmas greetings from Flippo & Neeca, featuring his song, “When It’s Christmas Time in Texas”: https://youtu.be/mpJCUGffU3A

~Wish You Were Here: A Novel by Jodi Picoult, one of my favorite authors, deals with the COVID pandemic in fiction as opposed to my nonfiction book. Check it out! Interesting story!

Coronavirus Reflections: Bitter or Better? mem
Read, reflect and respond—and heal!

~What happened to you in 2020-2021 during the coronavirus pandemic? Do you care? Are you on a spiritual path? Do you want to heal from the horrible effects of the pandemic of 2020? Visit my website to find out about my new book, Coronavirus Reflections: Bitter or Better? and my other five books and three cookbooks: https://laradasbooks.com