Show Time The Hillyard Belles, Trainmen And Show Band Make Retirement A Beautiful Age

It must be show time if the women’s dressing room at the Royal Park Care Center is filled with sequins, feathers and nervous laughter.

“Welcome ladies and gentlemen,” Otis Whitehead booms through the portable sound system. “We’re the Hillyard Belles, Trainmen and Show Band.”

Let the music begin.

Women wrapped in feathers and men in bow ties take the stage, and in no time have Royal Park residents singing and laughing.

“It’s a challenge to see that you can get a smile out of that person sitting there hunched over with their head in their hands,” says Florence Whitehead, founder of the Belles. “And we do. Next we try to get them dancing.”

Whitehead started the group in 1991 as a way to do some good while keeping busy. As an added bonus, it gives her husband, Otis, some place to play his saxophone.

“I got tired of sitting on the sidelines doing this,” she says, twiddling her thumbs. “I just felt like I had to get up and do something.”

There were eight Hillyard Belles that first year.

Three hundred eight shows later, they’re still at it.

During a recent practice at the Hillyard Community Center, 36 dancers and musicians gathered in the yellow light of the large hall.

Something wasn’t quite right for director Otis Whitehead.

“I heard and saw some conversation in the line during the show last time,” Whitehead gently admonishes. “Let’s not have that. If we brought in kids, we’d expect that kind of thing. I think we’re more mature than that.”

Indeed. The average age of the Hillyard Belles, Trainmen and Show Band hovers around the mid-70s.

“This is good for us, too,” says Duane Harris, wearing bib overalls, a trainman’s hat and a button that reads “I can’t remember your name either.”

“You know you have to be 50 years old to be in this group,” Harris says. “That’s my wife over there dancing. She’s 74. I’m 75. This thing is making us younger all the time.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 4 photos