The Crossmans Unhappy With Club Scene, Dancing Duo Start Their Own Family Place

Bob and Pat Crossman fell in love with country and western dancing in the Midwest.

For two years, they took lessons every weeknight and scuffed dance floors every weekend. What they didn’t like was the smoke and booze that usually comes with the dance club.

The Crossmans found clubs in the Milwaukee and Chicago areas that prohibited alcohol and smoking. But after retiring to Kootenai County in 1993, the couple found pickings were slim and none.

So the two converted a nursery shed on Highway 41 into The Crossroads, which, as far as they can tell, is the area’s only smoke- and alcohol-free country dance club.

“This is a place for families,” said Pat Crossman, an accountant by trade, but who now patiently teaches dozens of locals the intricate steps of line dancing and partner dancing.

Despite skeptics who told the Crossmans that a no-smoking, no-drinking club would fold like a tent, The Crossroads will turn one year old in October and attendance on Friday nights has never been stronger, the two said.

The combination of dancing and family aesthetics plays well in North Idaho. Crossroads recently held a celebratory picnic at Farragut State Park that drew about 100 loyal dancers.

Jim Fulton and his wife had tried other dance clubs, but, like the Crossmans, got turned off by the “bar scene.”

“It was like they were more of a bar than a place to dance,” said Fulton, of Coeur d’Alene, who dropped in on the Crossmans last week because he was in the neighborhood. “We just like the atmosphere a lot better here.”

The Crossmans teach beginning and intermediate dancers in six-week segments. They also teach in other clubs and for North Idaho College, reflecting dancing’s growing popularity here.

“At times on our dance floor, we’ll have people from age 8 to age 80,” Bob Crossman said. “We had one 80-year-old lady in our classes who not only kept up with all the moves, but was doing better than some of the younger folks.”

“I think age is a mind-set,” Pat Crossman said. “The dancing is really cross-generational now. It appeals to everybody.”

The Crossmans teach a lot more than line-dancing. Bob Crossman said the latest dances borrow from rhumba and swing influences, and even some techniques from ballroom dancing.

“A lot of ballroom teachers have come over and are teaching these kinds of dances,” Bob Crossman said. “It’s really become quite international.”

What is universal about most dance clubs of this type is something called “floor etiquette.” Different types of dancing - line dancing, two-stepping, etc. - are assigned different parts of the floor so that dancers don’t bounce into each other.

“We saw that a lot in the clubs in the Midwest,” Bob Crossman said. “Sometimes the guys playing the music would just flat out stop if the dancers continued to violate etiquette. You don’t often see a lot of etiquette in places around here.”

Dancers will at Crossroads, Pat Crossman said. “I know because I play the music.”

The 4,000-square-foot hall features a state-of-the-art “floating” dance floor that cushions footfalls and that can be repositioned if needed. The Crossmans took the shell of the building and created a casual, ranch-house look and feel to The Crossroads, including a quite, shaded porch behind the building that shelters dancers from the traffic on Highway 41.

While any expansion plans are on a “wait-and-see” basis, the pair said, their loyal dancers already are asking for a bigger dance floor.

Gary Crandall came to The Crossroads with his wife and won’t dance anywhere else. He’s a fan of the two-step, and was pleased to find a friendly, non-alcoholic place to dance, he said.

“And the teachers aren’t too bad either,” he said, winking at the Crossmans.

Building and running a club by themselves takes a lot of time. What do Bob and Pat like to do with what free time they have?

“Dance,” Bob Crossman said.

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