PEOPLE : Swinging Couple Don’t Miss a Step

They met--and first danced together--at the Figueroa Ballroom, which has long since burned down. Now 67 and 63 and married for 40 years, Monte and Nora Howell still cut a mean rug.

Swing-dancing to “In the Mood,” they danced off with first prize (a Cancun, Mexico, vacation) at the Big Band Bash this summer for couples 50-plus at Manhattan’s Roseland Ballroom.

Out-stepping seven other state finalists, they did fancy spins and twirls but, Nora says, it is a seniors’ event, so “we didn’t do any aerials or anything like that.”

They learned to jitterbug (now called swing dancing) by watching others. “Back before television, almost everybody danced,” says Monte, a retired computer systems analyst. At El Segundo High, “they’d bring out speakers and record players, and we’d dance in the hallways during lunch.”

Nora, a Fremont High girl, recalls “little malt shops with jukeboxes.”

The Howells, from Costa Mesa, hadn’t competed since the 1949 Harvest Moon Ball at the Aragon Ballroom in Ocean Park. (They didn’t win).

The Big Band Bash was sponsored by Geritol Extend (for vim and vigor). Seemingly, the Howells already have plenty of both: They ski and work out at a gym. They also go dancing at least three nights a week. But, Nora admits: “We can hardly tap our feet anymore to the fast numbers.”