Princesses Come Out to Dance With The Kings
Lisa Patrick
The Ashland Beacon
The days of big, fancy balls may be long gone and the horse-drawn carriages may have given way to automobiles both big and small, but there are some things that will never change. Little girls still want to dress up as princesses and, for most of them, their daddies are still their very first hero. This was evident on Saturday, February 11 as, after being on pause for three years due to COVID restrictions, the area father/daughter dances have finally made a return.
Friday night, the Boyd County Community Center played host to a father/daughter dance called “Ties & Tiaras.” This was a fundraising event for the Boyd County National Little League. It was attended by more than 150 people who came to have a good time and support the future of the little ones who will be stepping onto the ballfields in just a matter of weeks. D.J. Jeremy Holbrook remarked that there were plenty of “quality dudes” there to invest in “the lives of some little princesses” but admitted that “perhaps taking song requests from a room full of elementary school girls was a bad decision.” The little girls didn’t think that it was a bad decision though as they danced the night away to all of their favorites.
Saturday night saw the return of the popular Tri-State Father/Daughter Dance to Paul Blazer High School. This is a free (donation only) event that has always taken place on the Saturday before Valentine’s Day and benefits Two Hearts Pregnancy Center. The event has traditionally been put together by a group of three seniors who lead a group of volunteers of their peers to make the dance perfect for all the little girls coming to dance with their daddies. Those three then choose the three juniors that will take their place to put the event together the following year. After a three-year hiatus, things had to be done a little differently this year.
Kourtney Hieneman, Blazer teacher and the owner of Simply Willow Photography, reached out to senior Lexie Fannin to see if she was interested in heading a committee to get the dance going again this year. She was joined by junior Laney Sorrell and senior Gracen Layman as well as some other volunteer committee members to plan out the event.
Fannin said that “it’s our job as juniors and seniors to get all the work done” but the girls give a lot of credit to Hieneman for directing them in how to go about the planning. Around the end of December/beginning of January, “about ten of us [committee members] started reaching out to local businesses” to ask for donations of money and raffle items for the dance. Fannin pointed out that “we take no profit for ourselves. All money goes to benefit Two Hearts Pregnancy Center.”
Having only attended one of these dances in the past as a child, Fannin said that she “didn’t know what to expect.” She thought there would be around 100 attendees but “it’s so busy!” They didn’t get an exact count of how many people came in the door but “there’s at least 500 people in here!” Fannin said that “all of the dads lined up against the wall while their little girls run around with their friends was cracking me up!”
Not all of the dads were lined up on the wall though. Some of the daughters wanted their daddies on the dance floor with them and there were a lot of little princesses twirling around at the end of their daddy’s arms or just happily dancing while holding their daddy’s hands. Regardless of whether they wanted to hang out with their daddies or not, one thing that the girls had in common according to Fannin, Sorrell, and Layman was that they were all “so beautiful!”
Then it was time for the men to take the floor for the “Daddy Dance-Off.” All of the little princesses circled the dance floor as their daddies willingly did their best to make fools of themselves to the utter joy of their daughters. As the DJ switched the music from one song to another, the men did their best to keep up with the beat with various levels of success.
The girls really wanted to thank the community for making the return event such a success. They wanted to thank everyone for the donations, which Layman estimated to come in between two and three thousand dollars for Two Hearts Pregnancy Center. As a junior, Sorrell plans to be involved in the planning of the event next year.
