They needed to open a package of instant Fonda and feed it to fitness-hungry masses.
Denise Druce looked like she might cook something up.
She was 18 and a receptionist for a health club when it went belly-up. When none of the instructors showed up but many of the patrons did for an aerobics class, she suddenly was pressed into service.
"I got out there on 2-inch thick lime green shag carpet in leg warmers from the lost and found. I had done a Jane Fonda tape at home exactly one time," said Druce, owner of the Anatomy Academy, 5 Triad Center, which she has turned into a downtown fitness mecca for countless faithful pilgrims.
"I had everyone lay on their sides and do a jillion of these and a jillion of those," Druce said, pantomiming left lifts. "Then we all danced around the universal machine in the middle of the floor, shouted 'woo-ooo' and 'ahh-ahh' a few times and went home."
Druce had found a new home.
"I loved it," Druce said. "I felt I'd discovered something where I could help people."
A 1981 graduate of Bingham High School, she had studied jazz and tap and modern dance and drill-teamed since girlhood. She began putting her native ability and newfound aerobics interest together.
She was a long way from owning her own business.
Even that had a wonderful haphazardness about it.
"It was a case of pure naivete. I started on a shoestring and had no idea what I was getting into," Druce said.
Withdrawing her life savings — $3,000 — she began teaching have-boombox-will-travel wellness classes in a school cafeteria. Then she got wind of a health club going out of business in the old Auerbach's Building.
Seeing empty space that looked like it was going to stay empty, Druce seized the opportunity, wangling the first three months rent free and three more months at $500 per month.
What if you gave a battle-of-the-bulge party and nobody came?
Druce didn't have to worry about it. By then she'd worked one year full-time for a health club. Her following found her.
"We opened the doors and 200 clients walked in," Druce said. "They had faith in us — and, no doubt, took pity on us at the same time."
The grand opening turned into a church-social potluck, customers
bringing chips and dips and veggie trays and coolers full of stuff.
The coolers being key.
"Someone left two big huge coolers behind and I took them into my office and made a desk out of them," Druce said.
For weeks, early Coleman constituted her office decor.
"I did pop for $600 for a phone system and the stereo was commercial grade, if used," Druce said.
From those Quixotic beginnings, Druce has built a small dynamo, an admirable model of the independent Little Business That Could, chugging along successfully the past 11 years against the inroads of fitness chain behemoths.
"We're the Meg Ryan 'You've Got Mail,' corner fitness store with the Fox giant down the block," Druce said.
She has found a way to thrive and survive.
"Including the suburbs, I think I've counted 25 clubs that have opened and closed their doors since I began," she said.
She has done it the old-fashioned way, earning her clients with perhaps her strongest selling point, the personal touch.
"I try to maintain a very personal link to everyone in the class," she said. "I believe in a lot of eye contact. I've seen a lot of instructors who are performers. It's more about getting their own workout in. They watch themselves in the mirror with their backs to the class.
"I want to face my class and be involved with them," Druce said.
Her approach has worked so well, some workout warriors have stuck with her from the beginning. Darrell Hanson, 59, Olympus Cove, is one who's been sweatin' to the oldies with Druce since 1986.
"It's the quality of the program that keeps me coming back," said Hanson, dripping, but not panting too hard, as he came off the floor from his routine lunch-hour workout. "It meets my needs."
"It's the people here," said prosecuting attorney Chou Chou Collins, Salt Lake City, who's been with Druce since 1991. "It's like that TV show 'Cheers.' You want to go where everybody knows your name. I walk in and I feel home."
Getting more people into that feeling is an abiding passion for Druce. She cited a surgeon general's report that 85 percent of Americans aren't fit enough.
"I've been playing tug-of-war for that 15 percent with other health clubs," she said. "The real challenge is to make that pie bigger by getting more people into healthy lifestyles."
One avenue is the Internet. Druce has helped design the Web site for www.ifit.com. Log on and plug it into your home treadmill, for instance, you can get music or a personal trainer coaching you through a workout or a digital run through pleasing surroundings.
"You can be on a Hawaiian beach, in red rock country or the Tetons at the push of a button," Druce said.
Another major calling: Druce believes firmly in designing programs especially for working mothers.
"When women get to the mommy phase, they have special needs that aren't addressed: Body image, empowerment, low sense of self-esteem, low sexuality.
"I would rather be a mother (her son, Jackson, is 2) than anything in the world. But it's important to see our romantic , womanly sides. I want to create a safe, nuturing environment for moms to explore this."
Druce has built a reputation that has attracted the stars: Vanessa Williams, Melissa Gilbert, Greg Harrison, Brooke Shields. Madonna and Dennis Rodman could've gotten the place raided.
Karl Malone has led spinning classes. Druce personally trained Malone's wife, Kay.
But it is Druce's connectedness to garden-variety fitness enthusiasts she makes feel special that has helped her endure.
"We've survived tornadoes, shooting sprees, TRAX construction, freeway closures, Jazz playoffs, the arts festival closing us down for three weeks and being tucked away out of sight where no one can see our signage," she said.
"The upside is that we have been blessed with very loyal customers."
The key has been the force of Druce's conviction, vision and business savvy.
"I always wanted to be a cheerleader growing up. I guess this has fulfilled that dream," she said, laughing.
The cheer she hears every day is slimmer-hips-hips-hooray.
You can reach Gib Twyman by e-mail at gtwyman@desnews.com