Basque Dancers,
On July 13, I had a chance meeting in downtown Washington, D.C., with a lady who observed that I was driving a car with Idaho license plates. She introduced herself as Anita Jausoro from Boise who had just arrived in Washington with the Oinkari Basque Dancers, who would be performing at the Kennedy Center.
When I was a young congressman from Idaho in 1961, the Basque dancers had just been organized and were starting to give public performances. They were very good when I first saw them perform in 1962 or 1963 and again when I saw one of their performances in 1978 when I was living in Boise. They were outstanding then.
However, on Wednesday night performing on the Millennium Stage of the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., their performance was the best ever.
You could see that these young men and women had spent thousands of hours in rehearsals and practice to perfect these exciting, colorful and extremely well coordinated dances.
I have never been more proud of a product from my home state of Idaho than I was of the outstanding Basque dance performance by our Oinkari Basque Dancers at the Kennedy Center. They were truly great. They received ovation after ovation from a "full house" appreciative audience.
Thank you for representing Idaho with a great, great performance.
Ralph Harding, Arlington, VA
