Yolanda Baker: Last of the disco ball makers

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Yolanda Baker's fingers move with electric efficiency as she works her way around a mirror ball early on a Tuesday morning in a small Highlands factory. The core of the mirror ball is dull spun aluminum but with every pass Baker is turning it into a portable party, applying mirrored squares with impressive speed and purpose.

There is no second-guessing or stopping to fix mistakes. Baker is taking no prisoners on this morning and the mirror ball, more popularly known as a disco ball, is blooming quickly as a handful of bystanders watch. She doesn't seem to notice the prying eyes. She's had some practice at staying focused. 

Baker has made tens of thousands of mirror balls for Louisville's Omega National Products, the nation's leading provider of the same for nearly 50 years. She has been making them for 47 years and now, at an extremely spry 70, is thought to be the last disco ball maker in America.

She cranks them out daily at Omega's small shop on Breckinridge Street near Baxter Avenue, with sizes typically ranging from two to 36 inches. Baker has filled orders from Madonna, Kid Rock, Pearl Jam, and infamous New York disco Studio 54. Locally, Omega's disco balls have graced Jim Porter's Goodtime Emporium, Champ's Rollerdrome, and Coyote's Music and Dance Hall, for whom Baker also covered a saddle in mirrors. 

And, of course, that's an Omega ball in "Saturday Night Fever," the iconic John Travolta film that debuted 40 years ago today.

Long story short: If you've seen a legitimate disco ball, hand-crafted with mirrors, anywhere in the world, the odds are astronomically high that it began life at Omega.

"I can't imagine how many people drive by here and never know what goes on," said the soft-spoken Baker, known as YoYo to her coworkers.

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Baker has been busy since a July story on NBC News sparked interest in her work, but her weekly output is a fraction of what she averaged during the glory days of mirror balls. She's one of 13 workers in the mirror division and can always find something to do, but disco balls have become her calling card.

"Yolanda Baker, the disco ball maker," said Toni Lehring, mirror sales and service manager at Omega. "I don't know what we'd do without her."

Bruce Woodward, who owned Omega from 1985 to 2005, said that Baker was an indispensable and exceptionally reliable part of the company's family. "I have to tell you a story about Yo Yo," said Woodward, 83. "One time an unmarked police car went through the end of our building at a very high speed and punched all the way through the building up to the windshield. YoYo wasn't injured but I'm sure that shortly after she was sitting there patiently doing disco balls."

Baker joined Omega, then called National Products, in 1968 as part of its wood division. She switched to mirrors in 1970 as demand for disco balls was growing and within a few years, as disco became a cultural phenomenon, she was leading a team of nearly 30 women, each of whom was making 25 balls daily.

Before cheaply made imported mirror balls flooded the market – Baker scoffs at the foam and plastic knock-offs – Omega's peak production years saw them delivering more than 160,000 disco balls annually. Baker's crew worked with a boom box blaring and she, fittingly, preferred The Bee Gees even before they provided all of the key songs for "Saturday Night Fever."

"It was a blast," Baker said. "All different shapes, forms and personalities. Each day we had music to calm the beast."

Omega National Products was founded in 1948 and its wood division was once on Breckinridge across the street from where Baker works. It has since moved to Elkhart, Ind., and employs the bulk of Omega's roughly 100 workers.

Its mirror division has been making antiqued mirrors for more than 70 years and examples are owned by Garth Brooks, Kenny Rogers, Lenny Kravitz and Toby Keith. Omega employees flew to Las Vegas in the 1970s and mirrored one of Liberace's pianos and his 1962 Rolls-Royce Phantom (Baker didn't get to attend that party).

Ward Plauche, who owned and operated Coyote's, said that Baker's mirrored saddle was a focal point for customers. "We bought the saddle and painted it silver and then took it to (Baker) and she put the mirrors on. She showed us how to do it and then we made a couple more ourselves for other clubs. She took us to school."

Everything mirror-related is done in Louisville and all mirror balls are handled by Baker, who has been flying solo since 2008. On a recent morning, Baker showed how sheets of mirror glued to heavy cloth are scored in various sizes and then broken into squares. Strips of mirrored cloth are then cut into workable lengths. She grabs an aluminum shell, made in Illinois, and carefully applies glue. The middle of the ball is covered first with what Baker calls the "belly band" and then, one strip at a time, she starts the laborious process of turning a dull ball into an explosion of light.

Baker said that people are momentarily confused when she tells them what she does for a living, and she doesn't easily volunteer even her best stories, such as watching Madonna ride one of her disco balls while singing on television. For Baker, it's simply a job she loves and loves to do well.

"I take a lot of pride in what I do," she said. "Somebody will say, 'Oh it's just a mirror ball,' but that's not true. It's most of my life. I take a lot of pride and joy in it." 

Baker hasn't yet considered joining her husband, Tom, in retirement. She said she belongs at Omega and figures she has a few more years left. She celebrates her 50th anniversary in 2018 – she would be the first Omega employee to work 50 consecutive years – and the perfect anniversary gift is literally right in front of her face: a mirror ball.

"I don't have one," she said. "Isn't that weird?"

Reporter Jeffrey Lee Puckett can be reached at (502) 582-4160 and jpuckett@courier-journal.com.