The History of Importers

In the early 1970's, several high-level challenge dancers in the Chicago area gathered over a few pints of grog and bemoaned the fact that they were spending quite a bit of time and money traveling out-of-town to various dancing weekends. After the obligatory grumbling about their problem, the short, quiet guy in the corner said, "Hey guys, rather than all of us traveling to the dance, why don't we bring the dance to Chicago?"

Well ... you can imagine the amount of derision this revolutionary idea met! But a seed had been planted, and shortly thereafter they all came around to see the merit in the suggestion. Indeed, wouldn't it make more sense (or less cents, depending on your point of view) to pool our resources and bring the caller to us? Or, let's IMPORT the caller!

And the Importers challenge square dance club was born.