Dick Oakes Fan Club

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CLICK for a larger scan of a much-washed Dick Oakes Fan Club T-shirt

In 1978, in Houston, Texas, the Dick Oakes Fan Club was established when Carol Young and a friend interrupted a folk dance workshop to pull a T-shirt over the head of a surprised Dick Oakes. Dick was teaching in the center of a huge circle of onlooking, just as surprised, folk dancers.

Both Carol and her friend had on similar dark brown T-shirts, each with a large white acorn in the center. In Olde English font above the acorn was "DICK OAKES" and underneath was "FAN CLUB." Below that was a two-line sentence that read "Every great oak was once a nut that held its ground."

Every great nut...

The only difference was that Dick's T-shirt didn't have the words "FAN CLUB." And, as they say, the rest is history.

Dick moved back to southern California from Houston the next year and Carol joined him there from Oklahoma. Seventeen years later, the couple moved to Colorado where they married.