UWMBDA lost a dear member of our family in December 2009. Every weekend we enjoy this amazing dance organization Michael Bourne helped create almost 20 years ago. Michael's great passion in life was as a dance instructor. He taught lessons for UWMBDA, Union Minicourses, the First Unitarian Society, and the Madison School & Community Recreation program.

Remembrance Service Announcement

If you ever attended UWMBDA's kickoff dance at the beginning of a semester, Michael was sure to entertain as he called out dance steps with his larger than life voice in Memorial Union's Great Hall to 300 new students eager to learn swing, tango, cha cha, or many other dances he enjoyed teaching. Michael never needed a microphone. He made it exciting and fun for students trying dance for the first time, made them feel welcome in the UW dance community, and by the end of the evening left them wanting more. But dancing itself wasn't the most important activity to Michael. What was most important to him were the friends he made, the activities we shared, and the lives he touched through dancing.

UWMBDA started as a competitive dance team in 1989 when there was no other ballroom dance organizations on campus. It was Michael's vision and leadership that transformed UWMBDA into a social dance organization in 1991. We have a dance calendar these days, but back then Michael enjoyed leading a social calendar. We have many fond memories of day hikes, white water rafting trips, rock climbing, canoeing, and camping trips, road trips to Milwaukee and dancing to live bands at Chicago's Navy Pier, all organized by Michael. He frequently hosted game nights at his home on Willy Street, and this time of the year was a favorite time for pumpkin carving parties, Thanksgiving dinner with friends, and no one could forget making gingerbread houses followed by caroling around the neighborhood.

Michael was also an accomplished carpenter and landscape contractor in Madison. Whatever Michael built, it was built to last. We still use the wood mixer box he constructed for the club 18 years ago. It was never a surprise to call him at random times and find he was somewhere else in the country sandbagging on the Mississippi river to protect a town from flood waters, or with relief efforts after a storm, most recently helping with relief efforts after the tsunami in Indonesia and after hurricane Katrina in Louisiana. Within hours after the hurricane made landfall, Michael was loading tools and sheeting into a rented car and drove all the way to Louisiana. After being repeatedly turned back by police, he eventually found a Unitarian church in Lacombe had lost most of it's metal roof and helped create a temporary roof with the sheeting just before the next rainstorm, saving the church. Several weeks later, we remember Michael calling to ask we please send him ballroom music to a relief station near Baton Rouge. Why might you ask? Michael was, of course, teaching dance lessons to fellow relief workers in the evenings during their downtime at the hotel. He once said he valued himself by what he could contribute to society. Whether or not he had much money, by all accounts we can honestly say he is one of the richest persons we know.

Those of us who know Michael remember him as a very generous and kind-hearted person full of laughter and we will miss him very much. His spirit continues to live within us on the UWMBDA dance floor every weekend. Michael collected a wide variety of dance music we enjoyed hearing at dances and his parties. Here are a few songs we remember he enjoyed dancing to the most. He always danced tango to the Stray Cat Strut and seems fitting because a stray cat could always find shelter and a home with Michael.