Celebrate National Ballroom Dance Week this year at a kick-off ballroom dance event at 8 pm Friday at the Adult Center of Prescott, 335 E Aubrey St.; a free "Tea Dance" Sunday at the Ponderosa Plaza Mal; and a "Grand Ball", Friday, September 21 at the Adult Center.

The idea for a National Ballroom Week started with one person and has snowballed across the country in just 12 years.

In 1989 Mary Helen McSweeney, New York City, had an idea to put together a "Ballroom Week" to bring all of the dancing community together and present ballroom dancing at its best to the public.

Members of the Greater New York Chapter of the USABDA bonded with studios, pros, the city government and caused dancing everyplace in the city.

In 1990 the editors of the major dance publications in the United States, Dancing USA, Dance Action International and Amateur Dancers, got together, and in consensus, agreed to publish the proposition of the whole country having a National Ballroom Dance Week.

Then USABDA president, Peter Pover, even got then President George Bush and Mrs. Bush to poise for a picture dancing.

In 1991 the week was extended to ten days so that there would be two anchor weekends. The national media started to pick up on NBDW, emphasis was on "Everyone Dance - at least a Waltz or a Cha Cha."

National Ballroom Dance Week continues to grow strong across the country with its aim to help more people discover the joys of dancing, said Ron and Rebecca Kellen, local ballroom dance instructors.

The benefits of dancing include the fun of socializing while enlarging your circle of friends, shaping leisure time, pursuing healthful and entertaining physical exercise and even developing added personal confidence, they said.