Lloyd Shaw and the Cheyenne Mountain Dancers
As superintendent of the public K-12 Cheyenne Mountain School in Colorado Springs from 1916 to 1951, Lloyd Shaw earned national attention. After coaching a successful football team for several years, he discontinued the sport and went in search of a safer and more inclusive activity. He first introduced international folk dance as a part of the school curriculum, and then discovered American square dance and made that a focus for older students. He researched square dances, published a popular book on the subject, and developed an exhibition team of high school students whose performances during the 1940s revived an interest in square dancing across the nation.
The dancing was just one part of the Cheyenne School experience. Lloyd Shaw also wanted his students to experience the extended world around them, a forerunner of today's nature-based curricula. Cheyenne students went on camping trips and expeditions around the state, enjoyed ski outings before there were any ski resorts, created their own rodeo (including building the arena where all events took place), and much more.
Shaw started writing a memoir of these experienced, and the narrative was continued after his death by his wife Dorothy Stott Shaw. Their granddaughter, Enid Obee Cocke, edited their material and contibuted her own chapters so the book as a whole has a logical flow.
Subjects: Traditional Western (pre-1940), Transitional/Western 1940s, Person
Item Relations
| This Item | is related to | Item: Bill Litchman 2a - Lloyd Shaw, part 1 |
| This Item | is related to | Item: Herb Egender - part 1 |
| This Item | is related to | Item: Cheyenne Mountain Dancers - Split Ring Hash |
| This Item | is related to | Item: "So They Gave Up Football" |
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Dublin Core
Description
The dancing was just one part of the Cheyenne School experience. Lloyd Shaw also wanted his students to experience the extended world around them, a forerunner of today's nature-based curricula. Cheyenne students went on camping trips and expeditions around the state, enjoyed ski outings before there were any ski resorts, created their own rodeo (including building the arena where all events took place), and much more.
Shaw started writing a memoir of these experienced, and the narrative was continued after his death by his wife Dorothy Stott Shaw. Their granddaughter, Enid Obee Cocke, edited their material and contibuted her own chapters so the book as a whole has a logical flow.