Oregon Ballroom Dance Club President Michelle Baldwin wears many hats, and makes them too

By Jennifer Felli

“I was disappointed that no one dressed as a groundhog,” said Michelle Baldwin, speaking more to herself than the handful of people seated around the table for the weekly Oregon Ballroom Dance Club meeting. It’s a Monday night in early February, and just three days earlier, on Friday, the club held its bi-annual formal, and had offered free admission to anyone dressed, or claiming to be dressed, as a groundhog.

“How do you dress like a groundhog anyway?” asked one of the girls.

Watch ballroom dancing Watch Michelle make hats Oregon Ballroom Dance Club

“You just wear ears and brown,” said Michelle, gesturing with her hands. Michelle is the president of the Oregon Ballroom Dance Club, commonly referred to by its members as OBDC. It is her third and final year with that title. She conducts tonight’s meeting casually and with a confidence that stems from years of familiarity with her position, or maybe it’s just that she is used to being in charge.

Michelle, a senior double majoring in psychology and
anthropology, does not waste time, even when she’s having fun. “About a year ago, I decided to cut down on my time spent
with a lot of friends, and instead I just spend more time with the friends that I really care about,” she said. That’s what happens when you not only have 20 units of classes, but also 30 hours of work each week, and a responsibility as both webmaster and chair of the recruiting committee for the Psychology Honor Society. Michelle is also working diligently on her psychology senior project. Somewhere in the mix, she is the devoted leader of the OBDC, attending weekly meetings for the club as well as
its weekly Friday night dance at Gerlinger Hall.

Michelle began making paper hats during her summers at a children's museum. Now, she makes them in under a minute.

Every Tuesday morning, Michelle squeezes a couple of required OBDC office hours in between classes. Today, she sits cross-legged on top of a spare desk in her cubicle. The wall is decorated with black-and-white photos depicting old-fashioned couples ballroom dancing and big block letters that exclaim, “Dancing makes you smile.” And, Michelle is indeed smiling. The sound of the phone ringing startles her though, and as she reaches for the receiver she explains incredulously, “Nobody ever calls our office.”

Instead, Michelle adds after telling the caller details about the upcoming weekly dance, most people just call the OBDC hotline. The dances have been sponsored by OBDC for years and usually draw a weekly crowd of over 100 people. “We have a core group of 60 people or so that attend on a regular basis. Another 60 people or so are random,” said Michelle. The event appeals to people from all generations throughout Eugene.

Michelle is somewhat of a novice at ballroom dancing. She tried it out for the first time during her first year at the university, but she didn’t get involved immediately with the club. “It was either dancing on Friday night or ultimate Frisbee, and Frisbee won out that year,” she said. She decided to give ballroom dancing another try the next year, and before she knew it, she was president of the Oregon Ballroom Dance Club.

Michelle Baldwin discusses the upcoming formal at a recent Oregon Ballroom Dance Club meeting.

Michelle grew up on a farm in the small town of Sheridan, about 30 minutes northwest of Salem. She jokes that her parents really wanted to run their own farming business, but they couldn’t bring themselves to kill their animals. Instead Michelle, her older brother, and her parents embraced animals. At age 5, Michelle got her first pony, and at 16 a horse. She was active in the 4H club and even raised and sold her own bunnies. Home schooled by her mother, Michelle graduated from high school at age 16. Well ahead of her age group, and not yet ready to jump into university life, Michelle attended courses at the local community college, with a focus on anthropology and English.

Michelle first fell in love with anthropology at A.C. Gilbert’s Discovery Village, a children’s museum in Salem where she volunteers every summer. “I can make all kinds of newspaper hats – cowboy hats, pirate hats,” she said, a skill she has picked up over the course of her several summers at the museum. In addition to her interest in anthropology, Michelle is committed to the study of psychology. Her senior project is an experiment in shareability – a quasi-term that describes the association of memories with emotions. The project requires hours of research, which she completed last quarter. She is currently investigating theories based on the research by testing people from the Human
Subjects Pool, otherwise known as freshmen.

If you run into Michelle, chances are she'll be wearing something black.

Besides being a devoted student, Michelle moonlights as a bank clerk on weekends. She also works three mornings a week for University Dining Services, getting up at 6:30 a.m. “I spend two hours scanning people’s IDs; then I eat breakfast,” said Michelle. And, with a schedule like Michelle’s, that may very well be the last meal of the day. Today, she carries a refreshing-looking bottle of lemon water housed in a frosted Nalgene, but lunch time has come and gone and she’s on her way to another commitment. Although her schedule is full and her days are an endless to-do list, Michelle keeps her priorities straight, making sure to commit herself to activities she feels are especially important. “Instead of spreading myself thin I put a lot of time into things that really matter,” she said.

It’s Friday night, and Michelle is in her element. She wears black from head to toe, her shoulder-length brown hair slightly disheveled from a flurry of dance movement. She looks as if she doesn’t have a care in the world. Her only concern right this minute is finding a dance partner. But before she has a chance to catch her breath, she is whisked off to
the dance floor with a simple glance and a guiding hand from a fellow ballroom dancer. It’s time to shed the week’s routine of work, school, and work again. It’s time to dance.