A Short History of the Penn State
Swing Dancing Club

Written Fall semester 2000 by founder and first President Melissa Olivadoti

In the Fall of 1998, I came to Penn State as a freshman, and the first question I asked the info desk was "Is there a swing club on campus?" and the girl working there answered "No, but I think the ballroom dance club does some swing at least once a semester." I said to myself, that's definitely not enough to feed my habit. So my mom promptly suggested "Why don't you start something?" She never realized what that comment would lead to. Soon after classes started, I marched myself down to the student activities office, where I got the proper paperwork to start a club. Getting interested members was the easiest part, because all I did was go from floor to floor in my building and soon I had a 50-member roster. I also had no trouble getting officers, my original list, believe it or not, consisted of Jeremy Trethewey as Treasurer, with all the officers that you see today as original members (Toniann, Laura, and Tiff.)

My original schpeel was to have free membership and free lessons for all, so everyone could participate. My reasoning to people was "College students don't have any money to start with, so why charge them?" I wanted to get as many people involved in swing as possible, and it definitely attracted them by the hordes.

The member list grew as John Hurst, East Halls Coordinator, let me give free lessons before we were even official. By October of 1998, I had over 150 people on my roster. Six months later I was freaking on the phone to my mom about hitting the 300 mark, and by spring of 2000 we had over 500 members. My freshman year (1998) we only had two dances in the fall, and two in the spring, and the only other activities consisted of giving other groups beginner lessons. By my sophomore year (1999) we had many more dances, even though we experienced some serious difficulties after we were kicked out of the ballroom completely and had to settle for Thursday night dances and some dances in the white building (thanks to DonJ). This year (2000) we have two swing nights a week, with a full roster of instructors for all levels of instruction. We now have bands coming from near and far, and our list has grown to over 800 people. I believe we are the largest student organization on campus, and bring in the 2nd largest slew of people to Latenight (besides creative crafts.) And all I wanted to do was dance every once in a while...