35th CALLERLAB Convention
Milestone Award
Presented by Mike Jacobs
It is appropriate that CALLERLAB’s highest award was named the Milestone. Milestones were originally erected by the ancient Romans to reassure the traveler that he was following the proper path, to indicate how far they have come, or how far was left to travel to the desired destination. Thus, the significance was never in the numbers, although they were important, but in what they represented. In fact, the most significant was the Golden Milestone that represented the center of the empire; in effect the number 0 from where all journeys started.
Tonight’s Milestone recipient has a lot of numbers to his credit but there are deeper meanings to his numbers just like the original milestones:43 years in calling, 16 National Square Dance Conventions, 33 CALLERLAB Conventions.
One of the long standing goals of CALLERLAB was to bring stability to the square dance world by standardizing the terms we use. Long before CALLERLAB started down that road, our recipient was helping to create those lists. More importantly, he dispersed that information around the square dance world. Like a square dancing Johnny Appleseed, he spread that information everywhere he went and all through the articles he wrote. This effort made it possible for dancers to know what was expected of them before going to a dance and for callers to learn what was needed to call a given program. He helped to make the playing field even and, more importantly, fair. One hundred ten Caller Schools and Seminars in thirty-eight states, three Canadian provinces, and seven countries outside of the North American Continent.
And these are only the tip of the iceberg in another of CALLERLAB’s long term goals in improving caller training. He is one the most prolific authors in the square dance community, not in writing calls, but in explaining how to dance them, to teach them, and to use them. Ask any Chairman of the Board how hard it is to come up with articles for DIRECTION every two months for two years. Yet, we look with awe at producing articles on a monthly basis for the last twenty-five years. Factor in the massive amount of material for his caller and dancer articles and we have a huge amount of material, all geared towards producing better dancers on the idea that dancers who feel good about their dancing will stay with the activity rather than leave in frustration.
Twenty-one years as an Accredited Caller Coach, 30 years as Chairman of the Challenge Committee, 35 years as the Manager of the National Advanced and Challenge Convention.
The early years of this event were not the money maker it became. In fact, it required out of pocket expenditures to make it work, more specifically his pocket. Yet he saw a need to provide this dance opportunity because no one else was providing it at the time. It went on to provide the standard by which those programs were called, not just here but world wide.
We have heard a lot of numbers tonight but more importantly, we have heard why these numbers were significant stops on the road he was traveling. Remember, our award is not a Tombstone marking the end of a career but a marker that it was significant we came the way we did.
Ladies and gentlemen, tonight’s recipient is Ed Foote.
