REDMOND — Ron Larson and Robin Doglio met on the dance floor 23 years ago, randomly partnered by an event organizer. The two have been sweethearts ever since, partners in love and in dancing.

Larson, who lives near Prineville, had been talked into attending that night by a neighbor who felt Ron was getting a little “too weird,” living mostly outdoors and away from people. Doglio, a new resident of Redmond at the time, had taken up dancing as a way to meet people and make friends.

The dance caller needed Doglio and Larson to pair up to complete a square. They grasped hands and started to step as the music kicked in. And yes, there were sparks.

“Oh we knew right away,” Doglio said. “Had the same rhythm, I guess.”

When the couple joins their dancing friends from the Redrock Squares on Friday for the club’s Sweetheart Dance, always held the Friday after Valentine’s Day, love will surely be in the air.

Grab a sweetheart and dance

Grab a sweetheart and dance

Redrock Squares

Sweetheart Dance

Friday, Feb. 19, 7-9:30 p.m.

Redmond Grange, 707 SW Kalama Ave.

$8 per dancer

Larson and Doglio never married. But they’ve square danced and round danced together for decades — as often as five days a week when they were younger. Now, they’ve slowed to just three or four nights a week.

“People used to ask us all the time when we were going to get married, but they’ve finally stopped,” said Doglio. “(Marriage is) just not us.”

Square dancing, however, proved to be.

Larson grew up west of Eugene in a community populated mostly by his relatives — descendants of Danish immigrants from generations prior. He moved to Prineville and felt emboldened by stepping out of his family’s shadow.

“I’m not related to anybody here!” he said proudly.

Larson bought a cabin and some property. He was washing his clothes and air drying them, cooking biscuits over open flame in a somewhat rustic lifestyle when a neighbor brought up the idea of dancing to break him out of some antisocial tendencies.

“He did think I was getting a little too weird,” Larson laughed.

Doglio and dancing helped. The couple, after they introduced themselves during their first quadrille, started dancing in Redmond, Prineville and Bend. In all three locations, clubs host weekly dances so there was always a place to go and people to meet. Larson took lessons. Then they began to travel farther afield to find other dances. Both said they felt welcomed by friendly fellow dancers and that the steps themselves were challenging and invigorating. But mostly, it was about making friends with new people.

“People are very welcoming and supportive in this community,” said Doglio.

For Larson, that support and close connection was hard to get used to. He grew up in a Scandinavian household where folks rarely touched or asked how everyone was doing.

Once, when he volunteered with Doglio to be a greeter at a dance, Larson thinks he hugged more people in an hour than he had in his entire life.

“Square dancers are the huggiest bunch of people I ever met,” said Larson.

“I helped him,” laughed Doglio. “He’s a great hugger now. He hugs everybody.”

The Sweetheart Dance this Friday is special. The Redrock Squares annually honor a couple or a single dancer. Larson and Doglio were honored in 2017.

“We try to make it one of the most romantic dances of the year,” said Pam Rich, a member of the club that helps organize the dance. Rich said they bring in an outside caller, and the music tends to be love songs. Dancers tend to dress up more than usual, with red-and-white tops and dresses that whirl around on each spin — though boots and jeans are welcome and popular, too.

Larson wears a drop-sleeve shirt and dances in leather moccasins while Doglio won’t be found dead on the dance floor without a flowing skirt that whirls with every turn and spin.

“It makes the dancing more fun,” said Doglio.

But Larson and Doglio aren’t the only ones who found love on the dance floor — or kept the fire alive there.

Pam Rich has been square dancing with her husband Mike since they moved to Redmond in 2000. Together they’ve attended most of the sweetheart dances since then. Pam said dancing, in general, has been good for their marriage. And she’s noticed others who have either found love or stayed in love with their weekly sashay.

“I think it helps keep couples connected,” said Pam.

Learn to square dance

Learn to

square dance

Redrock Squares

Mainstream Lessons

Sundays 3-4:30 p.m. and Wednesdays 5-6:30 p.m.

Redmond Grange, 707 SW Kalama.

Information: Debbie Klug, nurse4kids@aol.com

Joyce and Mike Welton of Bend have been married for 50 years, and they’ve been square dancing together for about 40 of them. Joyce Welton grew up watching her parents dance in Southern California, but she was married with children when she told Mike they were going to learn how to dance.

“I had to drag him out the first time,” said Joyce, now 80. “Now it’s him who is standing at the door waiting to go.”

They too found that dancing strengthened their relationship. The weekly outings were cheap and alcohol-free, and good exercise for the body and the mind.

“You really have to listen and think and concentrate,” said Joyce, who took a year’s worth of lessons with her husband and graduated to “plus” dancing, which requires a higher level of expertise.

The Weltons will be among a few dozen couples taking in the festivities Friday night at the Sweetheart Dance. Doglio and Larson, now in their 70s, were some of the youngest square dancers when they started, and are still among the youngest in Central Oregon.

They say if the clubs can’t bring in younger people, the tradition will soon die out. Doglio worries that for some, their chance at love will go with it.