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Ruth Travelletti of High Point never dreamed when she saw Bill Bohn at the Nautilus Fitness Club and asked him if he was a dancer that they would become dance partners. That was nine years ago, and they are still dancing.

Travelletti has always loved dancing, even as a little girl. She said she has been dancing since she was old enough to walk. As a child and young adult she took no special dance lessons.

“I remember going to the mall to shop with my teenage daughter and dancing to the music they were playing over the mall speakers. I think I embarrassed Becky, my teenage daughter,” Travelletti said.
She and Bohn danced their first dance together at the VFW in Kernersville.

Now they practice every day on the hardwood floors at Travelletti’s house. Ruth said they participate in street dances at festivals. They have enjoyed participating in several festivals in Winston-Salem and at the Lexington Barbecue Festival, Everybody’s Day in Thomasville, the Culler Senior Center in High Point and as finalists in the Senior Games in Raleigh.

Once a month they participate in dances at the YMCA in Salisbury where the band plays country and big band music.

Bohn graduated high school and college with no special training in dance. He had always been athletic growing up and he played baseball and other sports.

Bohn took an aerobic dance class in the early ’80s at his workplace. It was supposed to be a co-ed class, but he was the only male there. Since then he has taken clogging, ballet, tap, jazz, Irish s tep d ance and contra dance. Bohn goes to the Winston-Salem Academy of Dance Arts at least once a week.
Bohn and Travelletti feel that dancing helps them keep their minds and bodies in shape.

Travelletti usually chooses their costumes and has found them in several places. She has chosen several from catalogues and Carolina Thrift Store in High Point. Last summer while at Nags Head, she picked up two colorful caps for them to wear with their beach music outfits.

When they were getting ready to compete in the State Games one year, someone saw Travelletti putting on her costume and said, “If you don’t win, at least you will be the cutest one there.”

Many Friday and Saturday nights, Travelletti and Bohn can be found somewhere on the dance floor. They often go to Carolina Dance Land in Lexington to dance. The first Saturday of each month usually finds them at the YMCA in Salisbury.

Travelletti and Bohn take yoga lessons at the Culler Center at least twice a week. Bohn incorporated some of their yoga poses into one of their dances about June bugs.

Last year they represented the Culler Senior Center at the State Games in Raleigh. They came in second.

They danced at all the Beach Music programs in High Point this summer as well as at Party on the Plank and Arts Splash. You probably saw them there.

Most recently they danced at the fundraiser for the Children’s Home Society at Oak Hollow Mall when the Band of Oz played.
“You are never too old to dance,” Bohn, 76, said. Travelletti said she never tells her age.

Contact Kathy Johnson at mjohnson2@triad.rr.com.