MPR: The land of the dancing tractors

The land of the dancing tractors
By Dan Gunderson, Minnesota Public Radio
July 6, 2001

Square dancing is one of those things where you can learn a few basic steps in moments, then spend a lifetime practicing. Some people like to push the square-dancing envelope. Take the Park Rapids Crazy Eights - four couples who traded their dancing shoes for wheels.

Steve and Pam Holt turn in unison during a tractor square dance. See more images.

IT LOOKS A BIT LIKE a choreographed demolition derby; clouds of dust and the sound of revving engines fill the air as eight tractors maneuver inches apart inside a 120-foot circle. A square dance caller, safely out of harm's way, directs traffic over a loudspeaker.

"I think the crowd is sitting waiting for us to have a demolition derby," says Paul Stendahl, an original member of the Crazy Eights. At first, the dancers - or drivers - were all men. About six years ago the group went co-ed when Paul Stendahl coerced his wife Barb onto a tractor.

"When I first got home and told her that we were going to have women driving, she said, 'Who are you going to get?' I said, 'You.' She said, 'I don't think so.' It was on a Sunday afternoon. We got out on our driveway and I put her up there and I stood on the driveway and I said, 'Do a 180. Turn around as fast as you can.' And she cranked that thing around on the driveway and I said, 'You're going to make it.'"

Another unwilling recruit was Carol Schrum. She says she had serious doubts when her husband, Loyd, told her she'd be dancing with tractors. "I hadn't driven a tractor for well over 40 years. And I didn't think I could. But these square dancers have the patience of a saint, because they needed it when I started," she says.

Now, Carol says she's having a great time on the tractor. So is Elaine Rognstad. She and her husband, Ozzie, are long-time traditional square dancers, but she's hooked on tractor dancing. "As a matter of fact, when we square dance on foot, I keep telling myself, this is easier on tractors. It's not as much work," Rognstad says.

This zany dance troupe is Bill France's brainchild. An avid square dance caller for years, he convinced the local antique-tractor club to try dancing, and using blocks of wood on his kitchen table. He worked out the logistics of adapting square-dance moves to tractors.

"The only difference between regular square dancing and this is they're doing it on tractors," according to France.

There is one small concession. France took out all the dance moves that require dancers to back up, because it takes too long to shift the antique tractor transmissions. Seems the designers didn't have dance moves in mind.

Each couple drives a different make of tractor and they are intensely loyal to their brand.

Bill France says the Crazy Eights perform some very advanced square-dance moves. The drivers, he jokes, let him know when he makes things too complex. "When they all jump off the tractor and beat me up," he says. "We just work out the choreography until it looks smooth and if they have some spots they're rough with, we just keep going over it and over it. They seem to never get tired of it. They have fun."

Audiences also seem to like the Crazy Eights. They started strictly to entertain themselves and did a few local parades and country fairs. This year they'll be going to shows across Minnesota and in Iowa and North Dakota. Still, Loyd Schrum says not everyone sees the beauty in dancing tractors. "I have a son that, first time he saw it, said, 'Strictly a case of people with not enough to do,'" Schrum says.

The Park Rapids Crazy Eights say they'll keep the wheels turning as long as they're having fun.

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