Getting ready to dance
By From staff reports
Published in News on February 11, 2013 1:46 PM
The website is live, posters are going up around town and voting has officially begun for this year's Dancing Stars of Wayne County.
The third annual community fundraiser for education will be held Friday, April 19, at 6:30 p.m. at the Paramount Theatre.
Sponsored by the Wayne County Chamber of Commerce, 15 participants from around the county are involved in this year's event to generate financial support for education and various Wayne Education Network projects, including scholarships for prospective teachers and Wayne County students, the seventh-grade career fair, Junior Leadership Program, teacher recruitment and retention efforts, teacher mini-grants and other education programs.
Lara Landers, director of marketing and events with the Chamber, announced this week that the website is up and running to cast votes for dancer and their respective dance studios.
This year's event will be slightly different, she explained, and involve five local dance studios and enlist support from the community. In addition to providing choreography for the dancing stars they work with, top vote-getting studios can also benefit from proceeds of the event.
Studios and their dancers include the following:
Center Stage Theatre: Charlie Ivey, executive director of Partnership for Children of Wayne County; Greg Ricker, chief information officer for Strickland Insurance Group; and Scott Stevens, Goldsboro city manager
Mrs. Robins Dance Academy: Terry Light, assistant district attorney for Wayne, Lenoir and Greene counties; Peggy Van Voltenburg, hiring and benefits coordinator at Mt. Olive Pickle; and L.J. Manley, electrical technician at Mt. Olive Pickle
Goldsboro Ballet: Carol Bowden, sales manager for Curtis Media; Howard Whitfield, administrative director of rehabilitation services at Wayne Memorial Hospital; and Phyllis Moore, education reporter and columnist with the Goldsboro News-Argus.
Artistic Dance Academy: Susan Spengler, owner and center director of Mathnasium; Richard Gower, owner of Zaxby's; and Dr. Earl Moore, principal of Charles B. Aycock High School
A Step of Class: Josh McCullen, owner of Jersey Mike's Subs; Matilda Faircloth of Re/Max Complete; and Donna Underwood, kindergarten teacher at Eastern Wayne Elementary School.
Votes are $10 each and can be done online or through paper ballot, Ms. Landers said. The public can vote as many times and as often as they like.
Online votes will be accepted through midnight, April 18, by logging onto www.wayneeducationnetwork.org and clicking the icon for Dancing Stars of Wayne County.
Paper ballots can be obtained from the contestants, by calling the Chamber at 919-734-2241 or from the website. Voting will also take place the night of the event, through the use of paddles. Following each dance, audience members can hold up their paddle and a volunteer will collect and process votes.
Tickets for the event are also on sale, for $75 each.
Ballots and payments can be mailed to Wayne Charitable Partnership, Inc., P.O. Box 1107, Goldsboro, N.C. 27533. Checks are to be made payable to Wayne Charitable Partnership Inc.