With less than a month to go, members of the Bangor Board of REALTORS are busily preparing for the seventh annual Valentine’s Dance on Saturday, Feb. 8, at Jeff’s Catering in Brewer.

REALTOR member Jan Currier reports that ticket prices are $15 per person and a table for 10 can be reserved for $150.

The dance will feature the live music of Brian Catell and the Jump City Jazz Band, which, Currier adds, “is expected to feature a full menu of standards and swing, rock, ’60s, jazz and requests.”

The Bangor Board of REALTORS has been sponsoring this fund-raiser since 1996 and, with matching grants from the Maine Association of REALTORS, Wells Fargo Mortgage and support of local businesses, has donated more than $60,000 to Habitat for Humanity of Greater Bangor.

Habitat for Humanity builds homes for and with “partnership families” who are, Habitat volunteer Steve Earl of Bangor explained to me previously, “people who have an ability to repay, and who are willing to partner with us in providing 300-plus hours of sweat equity” in building their homes.

If you have questions about Habitat for Humanity, call 942-8977.

In the meantime, if you want to help support the REALTORS in the work of this nonprofit organization, contact any area REALTOR for tickets to the Valentine’s Dance.

Susan Potters of the Bangor Arts Council called with a terrific opportunity for our readers.

You are in for a real treat if you attend the next session of ArtsShare from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 14, at the Bangor Public Library, 145 Harlow St.

“We’re going to be focusing on small theater groups in the area,” Potters said. And one of the big attractions is going to be the students who performed in “Les Miserables” at Bangor High School.

“Some of the principals will come to sing their songs, again, for us,” she said, “and talk about what went into the show, how it affected them, and how they felt about doing it.”

Also taking part will be the show’s artistic directors, Carlene Hirsch and George Redman.

“This is a wonderful opportunity, especially for people who didn’t get to see it for the first time,” Hall added of the show, which was such a smash hit there is discussion of bringing it back this spring.

Hall said the program would feature “a couple of the smaller, adult theater companies, Winterport Open Stage and Northern Lights Theatre Company.”

It should be a delightful, but all too short, evening!

When I wrote last November that “hearing her voice on the other end of the line should have come as no surprise, since I knew nothing could keep Nancy Ziegenbein down,” I had no idea how true those words would prove to be and, to tell the truth, neither did anyone else.

Nancy suffered a spinal cord stroke in October, and the diagnosis at the time was that she would be permanently paralyzed from the waist down.

But, guess what? That’s not quite the case.

Our spunky Nancy is defying all the odds, and is “getting what is called ‘return’ in both legs,” she told me this week.

While still using a wheelchair, she is able to walk a bit with the aid of a walker, and, she said, she IS leading the Friends of the Symphony tour to France and England in April.

In fact, that’s why she called – to let readers know that a “few spots are still available” for the trip that benefits the Bangor Symphony Orchestra, and you can reserve yours by calling Nancy at her home at 947-7965.

She sounds just like her old self, by the way, and she is determined to do all she can, with the help of excellent therapists, to continue to beat the odds one day at a time.

I’ll have more information about this later, but mark your calendar for the D.A.R.E. Family Affair Spaghetti Supper from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, Jan. 31, at the Weatherbee School in Hampden.

Sponsored by the Hampden D.A.R.E. Parent Committee, tickets are $15 for families, $5 for adults and $2.50 for children.

Joni Averill, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402; 990-8288.