Friday, September 8th, 2006
Swing Time! at the Gulfport Casino Ballroom
featuring... The Midnight Ramblers
( Click any photo to see a larger version )
To sum it up, this event was a blast!
Providing the music was the latest & greatest iteration
of The Midnight Ramblers band. The band delivered
an exciting swingin' variety of tunes, ranging from the rock-&-boogie
jump that's been their trademark since the Rocket 88 days, all the
way down to some gritty shuffle-blues classics. No slackers,
the band kept the dance floor full from the end of the lesson almost
to closing time. A big crowd of new & familiar faces came to dance... and
a tremendous number of fun & exciting dances were danced!
Once the band took a break, it was contest time! The Jitterbug Dance Contest
offered all contestants a shot at winning two all-access Saturday passes to the
upcoming Swing Dance USA weekend, plus free entry and advancement to the Jitterbug
Division finals that weekend. In a close contest, top honors went to
Tampa Bay's Jim & Cindy (pictured below doing the high air step).
Runners-up Logan & Kelly are pictured below holding lucky number 13...
lucky indeed, because they actually ended up with top prize after
the 1st place couple indicated they couldn't make the weekend and
graciously agreed to exchange prizes with the runners up.
Tied for 3rd were Nate & Katie (he's in the white T with Buddy Holly glasses)
and Tyler & Mandy (Couple #3) from Sarasota. The contest was a lot of
fun to watch and even featured a rare appearance by Fritz & Eva (Couple #10)
who came out of dance retirement to show us their stuff! Thanks goes
to all our contestants for participating and to our esteemed judges,
Debra Kee, Vivian Wright, and Richard Kurtz for scoring the contest.
The very end of the evening featured a birthday jam for Christine (see below).
Enjoy all the photos! --Sam
Interested in downloading, displaying, or using one of these photos?
No problem... just see the copyright paragraph below for details. Most photos on this page
were snapped by Allison, and a few were taken by Sam & others.
© All photos at this web site, www.SwingTime.info, except where otherwise
stated, are Copyright 2000-2006 Swing Time, with all rights reserved; however,
for any photo whose smaller thumbnail appears on this page of the Photo Scrapbook,
permission is granted, for personal & noncommercial use only, to download, distribute,
or display the larger-size version of any such photo, provided that the photo is not
modified and that all text contained within the photo remains clearly visible.