Rita Young Allen, MA, MS

Tambourine Performance

Here's the Ms. Senior America Tambourine Tutorial performed by Susan Pellegrino, our National Tambourine Chairperson, and filmed by Helene Siegfried. We are SO incredibly grateful to these two ladies for doing such a fine job demonstrating this beloved routine, especially for all us Alabama folks, because the lady who originally created and designed this routine was our own, Ms. Gilda Campbell, who was Ms. Senior America in 1988.

Susan will also be with us in Alabama, front and center! So, you will have the best of the best leading the way!

Note from Susan:
"We should have had a video of the "Making of this Tutorial." Too many laughs and mishaps. End result was, "Helene, grab your cell phone, stick the microphone in that potted plant and I'm going to wing it!" And so we did! There are two tutorials here. One of me attempting to explain and demonstrate, and a video of me doing the routine at medium speed.

Have fun! Have a few laughs, but I think you will be able to pick up most of it. Hope it helps! Susan

Click here to print out the Tambourine Instruction Sheets

We will be doing our very classic Ragtimers performance at our Pageant. For those of you who might not know, Alabama has only had one Ms. Senior America, Gilda Campbell, National Queen in 1988. Gilda was born and raised in Birmingham, AL, the youngest of four girls. Although she grew up in the Depression, she never knew she was poor! She sold coat hangers and donuts door-to-door in her neighborhood to help raise money for her family. Gilda's sunny disposition gained her popularity at Woodlawn High School where she became Head Cheerleader.

She sang with Big Bands, taught Arthur Murray dance with her husband, had her own dance studio and worked at Auburn University.

Diagnosed with cancer in 1995, she kept a positive attitude, smiled through the pain and loved tirelessly.

We will do the Ragtimers performance in Alabama this year to celebrate Ms. Gilda because she was the one who created the routine and introduced it to Ms. Senior America in l988. She made video tapes of herself doing the routine and sent them out to other Queens so they could learn it. And now, you know the rest of the story.

Susan Pellegrino from Missouri is our National Tambourine Director and she did an excellent job creating a new instructional video for all our Queens to practice and learn the routine. Not only are we hoping to have many Queens to perform this with us in Alabama, but I am sure Susan would LOVE to have new Queens added to our National performance next year.

There is an outfit requirement, the same as for National, and you will need to furnish your own tambourine.