Square Dance Caller & Teacher
Hillie Bailey is one of the founding fathers of the modem Western square-dance movement in New England. Taught to square dance by Carl Rogers of the University of Maine County Extension Service in 1946, he originated the Dedham, ME Folk Dance Club in 1946 and was club caller for 33 years. He also started the Acadia Bells and Buoys, Frenchman’s Bay Riggers and Heart of Maine Squares in the 1960’s, and called at the first Maine Square Dance Festival in 1963. A true ambassador for our activity, he originated the International Exchange with Nova Scotia in which thousands of Maine dancers participated, and taught at the Nova Scotia Square Dance Camp. In 1964 he pioneered the tradition, still alive today, of a Sunrise Dance on Mount Desert Island, and was an invitee to the first International Square Dance Callers Convention in 1974 at which CALLERLAB originated. He called for the Canadian Centennial Square Dance in 1967 and the 100th Anniversary of the Calgary Stampede in 1975. Hillie has recently finished his tenure as Education Coordinator for the 1996-97 New England Square and Round Dance Convention in Bangor, ME, skillfully organizing programs that played to packed halls. Still going strong after over 50 years as a dancer and nearly 50 as a caller/cuer, Hillie Bailey exemplifies in his personal warmth and friendliness and dedication to the square and round dance activity all that is the best in leadership. It is a great privilege to induct him into New England‘s Hall of Fame.
