Instructor reflects on life lessons

Four women and one man gathered on the dance floor in front of their instructor, a tall man dressed black, from his collared shirt to his dance shoes.

“I had a favorite dance instructor who dressed in all black, so I occasionally like to take that on,” Fred Sego said.

Sego has taught dance in the Flathead Valley for nearly 30 years. On a recent afternoon, his newest class prepared for a lesson at the Kalispell Senior Center.

The sole male student left behind his cane and readjusted his suspenders. At 89, the man struggled to walk, but when he picked a partner, his feet slid through well-known steps — patterns he had followed most weekends at the Eagle’s Club in Kalispell years ago.

“Dance has no age,” Sego said.

Sego describes himself as 6-foot-2, slender, and “at one time I had brown hair and I’m older than I look.” He’s 83. And while he didn’t say it, charming should be added to the list.

“All right ladies,” he said to his students waiting for instruction. “I know what song you want next, ‘I’m in the mood for love.’”

The women giggled. The male student grinned toward the lady to his right, and then the one to his left.

And then they danced.

FOR SEGO, love has always been woven into dance.

Throughout high school, he was afraid of girls and embarrassment.

“I learned you’ll never be lonely if you know how to dance,” Sego said. “I guess I kept the beat satisfactory, because I never had a girl turn me down when I asked her to dance.”

He met his long-time dance partner two years into dancing.

Sego said he had “just left a really pretty girl” and decided he’d never have anything to do with women again.

He drove to his parents’ home in north-central Washington for time alone. There, in his mother’s living room, was a freckled-faced redhead he’d never met before. He saw her again the next night when he took his brother and sister out to a dance.

“And we danced, a lot, for 50 years. Sometime later, she said she wouldn’t have married me if I hadn’t danced,” Sego said.

They found time to dance between work and raising kids. They became students together, exploring different rhythms of ballroom fox trot, swing and waltz.

After Sego retired, they moved back to his hometown, Polson, where they spent Saturdays at the Eagles Club. They took over the club’s dance floors and friends began to ask for lessons.

“We taught an unbelievable number of times, we just fell into accidentally,” he said. “We danced together 50 of our 55 years — until Alzheimer’s took her away from me.”

Sego said they continued to teach dance after the diagnosis until her memory made it too difficult. When it became unsafe for her to stay at home, she moved into assisted living. She developed Parkinson’s. Then lost her ability to move without help.

“But a few times, when a waltz would strike up in the dining room, she would stand up and waltz with me, and entertained the others in the nursing home to no end,” Sego said. “Music stays with people longer than anything else.”

Sego stopped dancing throughout his wife’s illness. But after her death, he was drawn back to the dance floors where they had spent so much time. Since he and his wife had taught half the room how to dance, he always found a decent partner.

Since his wife’s death, Sego has found a new life, “unbelievably.”

He met his new love on the dance floor of the Eagles in Kalispell.

She became his steady dancing partner, then his teaching partner and, a year and a half later, his wife.

“The second time we danced, she looked up and smiled at me, and that was the beginning,” he said. “I compare her with the best when it comes to following, she dances so light, it’s easy for me to lead. And she’s gorgeous, I can’t believe she ever looked at me.”

SEGO’s Kalispell Senior Center class took turns on the dance floor. A sign, propped up in the corner of the room, read “Sitting is the new smoking.”

Toni Popp, 80, stood in a line with other students, watching Sego lead a woman through new steps.

“I’ve never really been a dancer,” Popp said. “I taught my husband how to dance so we could go to prom. But I haven’t danced for 10 years, outside of dancing with grandkids.”

But when Sego pulled Popp on the dance floor, her chin lifted as her eyes watched his right shoulder, and their feet slid into place for the waltz.

Sego still teaches his favorites at the Kalispell Eagles Club, including ballroom fox trot, swing, waltz, polka, cha-cha, rumba, tango, triple two-step and folk.

He said with dance partners from age 6 to 87, he’ll continue to learn from and teach the people he meets on dance floors.

“Dance is for anyone, at any time or any age,” Sego said. “It’s a matter of feeling the tempo; that’s what I teach new students, feel that beat.”

Sego’s next round of classes at the Eagles Club in Kalispell start Jan. 25, with five sessions of fox trot followed by five sessions of swing. Classes cost $40 for five 90-minute sessions. He charges $70 per couple. To learn more about Sego’s classes, call 406-250-5338.

Reporter Katheryn Houghton may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at khoughton@dailyinterlake.com.