Boy, I’d sure hate to be a normal (unconnected with square dancing) person in Albuquerque who decides they want to have a square dance and starts looking for a caller. Finding info would require a lot of dedication, and if the prospective dancer isn’t connected to the internet, it would be even harder.

Our yellow pages has a category for Square Dance Callers & Information; the Albuquerque Square Dance Center is listed. If you call that number, you’ll get an answering machine (unless you happen to call during the evening and someone happens to pick up the phone). If you’re lucky, somebody (me) will pick up the messages in a couple of days and get back to you. I have the phone numbers of all the MWSD callers in Albuquerque; I don’t know all the traditional callers, although I have a few connections there.

Next step (at least for me) would be the internet. When I google “albuquerque square dance callers” or “square dance callers albuquerque”, Bill Eyler comes up first. This is good: Bill is, in fact, an Albuquerque caller. And he’s good at doing party nights. But he’s also busy.

I come up within the first five, or at least my Ceder database entry does. This is good; I also am an Albuquerque area caller, and I’m okay at party nights.

The other caller within the first five listings is Andy Shore. Andy’s a caller in the Bay Area; he called for the IAGSDC convention in Albuquerque in 1992.

Moderately interesting is the fact that all three callers are gay.

Googling “square dance callers Albuquerque” also puts Jerry Jestin in the first five listings. Jerry’s not gay; he’s also not an Albuquerque caller, although he does call here a couple of times a year.

Clearly, we have a problem here; seems like people might be more inclined to think about having a square dance if they could actually find info about hiring a caller here in Albuquerque.

Yellow page ads are very expensive; I think even the smallest run around $150-$200/month. Individual callers probably can’t afford that. So that leaves the internet. I don’t understand why a caller wouldn’t have at least some kind of website.