About Red River Singles
Red River Singles is a nonprofit organization founded in 1977.  Membership in 1992
grew to over 640 single men and women.  (Read the March 4, 2006, Fargo Forum
article below on Red River Singles).

Red River Singles offers dances and other events for singles to participate in.  Alumni
are always welcome.

~ ~ ~ ~    Meet New People    ~ ~ ~ ~    Make New Friends    ~ ~ ~ ~

Who is eligible to join:  Any Single Adult.  

We define "Single" as: never married, legally separated, divorced or widowed.

We define an "Adult" as: someone who is at least 21 years old.

Membership dues:  Singles may join any time of the year by completing an application
card and paying the membership dues.  This can be done while paying admission to the
dances.  New 2010 membership dues are $30 and are good for 12 months from the
date purchased.

Privileges of Membership:  You are admitted to dances and other club activities at a
reduced price.  You also are included in and receive a membership booklet.

Admittance to dances:
$5 for RRS members (Must present current membership card to get the discount)
$5 for College Students (Must present valid college ID card)
$6 for Other Singles Club members (Must present current membership card to get the
discount)
$7 for Married Alumni (past RRS members who are now married)
$9 for Non-members

Dress Code: Casual to dress up depending on the theme, the event or you.

Halloween: Costumes-try to be one of the top three and win a prize.

Smoking Policy: An indoor NO smoking policy is in force at all indoor dances.
Singles mingle at local club dances
By Dave Roepke, The Forum
Published Saturday, March 04, 2006


After his first wife died, Don Fornes felt awkward socializing with his married friends.

Groups of four, six and eight had become groups of three, five and seven. When they played cards or danced, he was the
odd man out.
That’s why he left the Fargo Eagles Club early on a Saturday night shortly after his wife passed away. As he walked out,
the doorman pulled him aside. He knew Fornes’ wife had died.

You should stop in at the singles dance over at The Bowler, the doorman said. Fornes was skeptical, but he had to drive
by the bowling alley to get to his south Fargo home anyway.

“I figured I might as well stick my nose in and see what’s going on,” he says now, a quarter century later.

As soon as he walked in, Fornes saw a half dozen people he knew. This was what he was looking for, and he didn’t even
know he was looking for something.

“I just waltzed in there and felt right at home,” he says.

He soon became a regular at the singles dances and met his second wife. When she died in 1991, he met his third wife the
same way. They’ve been married 11 years now.       

So the Red River Valley Singles Club lost another pair of members. Twice. In the club’s 30 years of existence, it’s
happened dozens of times, definitely more than 50 but probably less than a hundred, says Kurt Kingsbury, the club’s
publicity director.

Neither Kingsbury nor anyone else minds when a couple pairs off. Losing membership is what this club is all about.

The singles who turn out for the club’s twice-a-month dances aren’t the sort you see in movies and on TV shows.

They’re not swinging bachelors and bachelorettes in their 20s and 30s. A handful of the 130 or so in attendance are in
their 40s, but most – well over three quarters – are 50 or older. Everyone I spoke to at a dance a few days before
Valentine’s Day was a divorcee, widow or widower.

Like most of the group’s dances, this one was at a ballroom in the Doublewood Inn in Fargo. In a room with so much loss
lingering, the vibe could be dour. But these people come here to get away from that, to move on. Most of them were
having a heck of a time, dancing to golden oldies courtesy of a quiet cover band.

“They’re not going to play Coldplay,” says club president Corinne Renner. “That’s just a demographic issue.”

Attendees range from the merely friendly to the outright flirty, liberated by the knowledge they won’t be barking up a
married tree.

That’s one of the draws for Mary Donegan, who is sitting with a group of about eight friends at a large round table. She
likes being able to ask a man to dance without looking over her shoulder. “I don’t want the wife coming up behind me,”
she says.

No one in Donegan’s group has had much luck with love tonight, but they laugh often. One member of her circle is Doug
Schmidt, a Carrington, N.D., man who came as “the doctor of love” to one of the club’s Halloween dances.

“I haven’t found anyone special yet, but they’re all special,” he says. “If it happens, it happens.”

Dennis Sahr, a 59-year-old truck driver from Jamestown, N.D., had similar thoughts about two
years ago. He was a club member, but he wasn’t looking for anybody. He just liked getting out
of the house.

Karal Baspaly, a 56-year-old billing clerk from Fargo, was looking for someone specific: a biker.

Sahr owns a motorcycle, a fact relayed to Baspaly about two years after he joined and four years after she did. She at first
confused him with some other guy from Jamestown.

Sahr was not confused. He knew Baspaly as the redhead with an outgoing personality.

“I was always so jealous because she was dancing with all the guys,” Sahr says.

“You’re the one always flirting,” Baspaly counters.

“We’re both kind of flirts,” Sahr admits.

They e-mailed back and forth before they eventually met up on their motorcycles in Tower City, N.D.

Things moved slowly. Sahr didn’t want to call their first outing a date. They didn’t kiss until a
month into the relationship.

“You start out with the basics, like you’re a teenager,” Baspaly says.

Gloria Fornes, Don’s wife, agrees that dating again brings out the teen in people whose teens aren’t even teens anymore.

“We could drink coffee until three in the morning if we wanted to, and it wasn’t wrong,” she says.

But there is good reason for urgency. “I’m too old to go three or four years and find out we won’t work out,” Sahr says.

That’s why Sahr and Baspaly got engaged around Christmas.

Renner says not everybody joins the club with romance in mind (though she’s been with a couple guys she’s met there).

Some just want to get out and meet people. Others were steered here by support groups.

It’s usually a struggle for first-timers, Renner says. “It takes a lot of courage to come alone to something like this,” she
says.

When she was still coming to events on a regular basis, Gloria Fornes tried to help newcomers by introducing them to
people. “You can tell the ones that are shell-shocked when they walk in,” she says.

Betty Larson doesn’t seem shell-shocked, but you could understand it if she was. Just a few days ago, the middle-aged
woman from Ada, Minn., finalized her divorce with her husband of 27 years. Her father died on Christmas Eve.

She’s at the dance with her mother. This is Larson’s second time at one of these get-togethers, and she says she’s having
a good time. It helps her forget about things.

“I don’t want to rush into a relationship,” she says after buying a drink at the bar. “I want to get out all of the bad stuff
first.”

It’s an ideal spot for that sort of thing. Lots of people around who’ve been through the same. Fornes wishes more people
would realize that. She thinks the club is one of the area’s best-kept secrets.

“I read the divorces in the paper and I think, ‘Where are all these people?’ ” she says.

Maybe they should talk to Schmidt, the former doctor of love. His prescription: “If you can’t have a good time here, it’s
not worth living,” he says.



Readers can reach Forum reporter Dave Roepke at (701) 241-5535
Michael Vosburg / Forum photo editor
RED RIVER SINGLES CELEBRATED 30 YEARS

Red River Singles celebrated 30 years on September 22, 2007 at the VFW in West
Fargo.  There were 178 plus in attendance.  Twenty-two alumni came to celebrate
and some had met their spouses at RRS.  Other happy couples announced their
engagements and recent marriages.  Congratulations to them!  We wish them all the
best.

Don and Gloria Fornes (alumni) donated a bouquet of flowers that was given as a door
prize.  Perkins, Speak Easy and the Royal Fork donated the gift certificates for
door prizes.  Bob Myers donated Hershey's Kisses for the tables.  Red River
Singles gave gift certificates to Lone Star and Grizzly's and dance passes.

Special thanks to Lute Simley for providing great music and much more.  Again,
thanks to all to made this night a success.  Lets help keep RRS going for another 30
years.

Have a
great week

RRS is now hosting most of the dances at the
Sons of Norway in Fargo, ND

Check the Dance and Event schedule for exact locations and activities.

Click here for a Printable 2009-2010 Dance Schedule

Red River Singles,  PO. Box  9781,  Fargo, ND  58106

E-mail address: red_river_singles@yahoo.com
or call 701-541-1183