Kilowatt Eights CLUB HISTORY starts Friday Night in the Summer of 1939 | |
Club with original banner in 1956 |
In October of 1939 Joe Lang started the Square Dance Club by backing out all the Public Service trucks from the garage, steam cleaning the floor, setting up a flatbed truck for a stage for the band who were Colorado Public Service employees and Kilowatt Eights began its long history. Remember that Kilowatt Eights has been dancing non stop since 1939. Those are from the remembrances of an original Kilowatt Eights member Wilbur Harr who was there that first night of dancing starting in the Summer of 1939. World War II was to begin shortly after. |
Square Dancing was one of the favored choices for dancing and fun by the couples who made up THE GREATEST GENERATION who had fought in their most very recent conflict of their times, World War II. |
Joe Lang with the mic and the 6 Colorado Public Service employees who made up the band.
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Kilowatt Eights original Caller Joe Lang as he looked in 1946. |
1976 Kilowatt Eights honoring Joe and Alma Lang |
In 1938 Lloyd Shaw (right) who got our present day Western style square dancing going down in the Cheyenne Mountain area of Colorado Springs held Caller classes. Joe Lang participated in those classes and when finished he founded our still existing Square Dance Club at Public Service Company of Colorado. |
The Band playing and Joe Lang calling in the photo above, Wilbur Harr in his youth in 1939 front foreground, far left. Wilbur has reached into his 90s and he cannot dance as much as he used to do in his younger dancing years when he was 19. |
Joe Lang in 1950 turned the running of the Square Dance Club over to Wilbur and Irma Harr (above, center front row). Joe and Alma Lang to their right. Wilbur became the first club president then. |
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Above: 1946 dance Joe Lang calling at Public Service S. Alcott St. hall Right: 1951 Christmas dance at the PS of C Wight Building. |