LAKE PLACID — For Barbara Kelly and Maggie Atkins, skating is like breathing — essential yet natural. They’ll do it to the end.

The pair met when Kelly, 79, a Lake Placid native, formed a coffee club. Atkins, 74, an Englishwoman who had followed her daughter to the United States, joined.

They hit it off and were soon skating and performing together.
Their performances have included skating to "Together" from Gypsy, dressed in dramatic black. "What we do, we’ll do it together," the ladies sang a reprise.
Some of their numbers have been humorous. One featured skating with a walker to the tune of "The Old Gray Mare."

Saturday, they were lunching at the Olympic arena in the center of Lake Placid as they planned awards ceremonies for winning skaters in the Empire State Games.

All around them, the place was abuzz, not just with talk of the state competitions but of the Olympic competitions in Turin, Italy. Updated computer reports were posted on a board at the complex, which people clustered about to read results.

Atkins and Kelly are acquainted with many world-famous skaters who have performed on the ice in Lake Placid.

About a tenth of the United States team competing in Italy for this Olympics, 21 American athletes, had competed in the Empire State Games, according to Fred Smith, director of the games.

Kelly and Atkins were planning grand ceremonies for Saturday night and Sunday at noon in the rink built for the 1980 Olympics.
"Maggie is first assistant," said Kelly. "We have a podium and carpets. I do the scripts and all that junk," she said, pulling the scripts from her bag as she spoke.

She works on organizing a half-dozen large skating events each year.
"It gives us a chance to interface with a lot of people," said Kelly. "And it’s a sport we love."
She went on to say, "We skate for free since we’re over 70." They are currently the only two to take advantage of the offer, she said.

The pair shared their opinions on the recent Olympic figure-skating competition.
"We knew the Japanese girl was by far the best," Kelly said of gold medalist Shizuka Arakawa "Most skaters don’t have any musicality."
"They don’t go by the phrase and beat," agreed Atkins. "The difference between skating and really good skating is moving with the music."

The Russian skaters have a tradition of being trained with music, said Kelly, and therefore do well.
"Musicality makes the difference," said Kelly. "That’s why we do well."

Placid life

While the pair agree about skating to the point where they can finish each other’s sentences, they were raised on different sides of the ocean in different worlds.

Kelly’s roots in Lake Placid are deep.

Her father was a golf pro and both of her parents were fishing guides. Her grandparents were Lake Placid natives, too.

Kelly, née Tyrell, looked out the window of the Olympic arena Saturday at the school fronted by a skating oval, ringed by flags from around the world.
"I went to kindergarten there and graduated on those steps," Kelly said, gesturing to the school.

Her education propelled her to college in Troy, at Russell Sage, where she met her husband, an RPI engineer. The couple raised a family of five children while living in Connecticut and Colorado.
"My husband used to joke that we had eight children but threw three away because they couldn’t sing a 440A," she said, explaining that was the note to which orchestras tune.

Kelly had both the basics of skating and singing instilled in her during her school years in Lake Placid.
"Everybody could skate for two dollars a year," she said.

She also participated in the pomp and ceremony of Lake Placid’s winter festival, serving on the royal court in the 1940’s, the year Perry Como was king. The hallway of the arena is lined with pictures of the royalty, stretching through the decades.

Kelly’s skating talents lay dormant in her adult life, however, until she was in her fifties.
"I went on the ice one time for fun and was asked to try out for the precision team," recalled Kelly. She made the team and then went on to compete successfully in the Adult Nationals.
In 2004, the year Kelly turned 76, she won first place in the Adult Nationals, skating to a number composed by her son, musician Joe Kelly, to the tune of "Seventy-six Trombones."
Her song was "Seventy-six Old Bones" and involved "rows and rows of pros dressed to kill as for a special date."

Yearning to dance

Atkins, from her earliest years, longed to be a dancer.
"My mother was on the stage — way, way back," she said. "The shows she did weren’t exactly burlesque,"
"Was it vaudeville, bump and grind"" asked Kelly.
"You could say vaudeville," replied Atkins, "but not bump and grind."
She explained, "The showgirls would come out there and do what they called dressing the stage."

Her mother was on stage, bare-breasted, with other young woman, creating an artistic montage, said Atkins.
"They couldn’t move," she said. "They did tableaus when the curtain would go up, then the curtain would go down."

Atkins said she hasn’t seen the recent film, Mrs. Henderson Presents, in which Judi Dench portrays a rich widow who puts on just such shows at the Windmill in London.
"I do remember the Windmill," said Atkins.
Atkins trained as a dancer. "I was always dancing," she said. "They sent me to the local dance school....All I ever wanted to do was be on the stage...I wanted to do ballet."

But since she was barely five feet tall, that was out. She started skating at age 18.
"You have that rhythm in your skating from being a dancer," said her friend, with admiration.
"I learned enough to get in the local ice show in Blackpool," said Atkins. "I started joining shows and toured around."

She is included in the book Hot Ice, on the history of the Blackpool Arena.

One of her most memorable skating parts was playing the bluebird in a London production of Snow White.
"Walt Disney himself came to see us and liked the show," said Atkins.

End game
"I never in my wildest dreams thought I would finish up here," Atkins concluded.
"I knew I would finish here," said Kelly.

The pair looked at home in the arena on Saturday. They greeted passers-by, like a pro skater from Italy and his wife and young daughter.

They also greeted another old friend, Linda Friedlander, whom Kelly described as a highly-ranked tennis player.
"The rest of my opponents are dead," quipped Friedlander as she hurried on her way.
"This is our place," said Kelly. "When you look out," she said, gesturing to the scene beyond the window, where snow was falling, muting the colors of the international flags, "you get that Olympic feeling."