PORT ANGELES — At first, the dance floor was full of nervous young people.
“Everyone’s hands were sweaty,” a candid Faithlynn Corey, 15, said of those debut sessions of Olympic Cotillion, a new, nonprofit after-school club meeting at the Port Angeles Library, 2210 S. Peabody St., at 4 p.m. every Thursday.
But that didn’t last, and now, Faithlynn said, she and her fellow cotillion students are having a ball — as in a formal one, later this spring.
Faithlynn is among the participants, in fourth grade up through high school, who are learning etiquette and social graces along with the slow-slow-rock-step of swing dancing with a well-dressed partner.
Just before last week’s Olympic Cotillion meeting, the teenager and her family, all dressed in business-casual attire, scampered into the library: sisters Hannah, 13, Mairyn, 12, and Chloe, 10; brothers Josiah, 13, Caleb, 11, and Adam, 9.
Their mom, Minda Corey, is Olympic Cotillion’s teacher, a woman whose enthusiasm somehow makes manners and a dress code sound like fun.
“We want to include all of the youth in Clallam County,” she begins, “and if we grow big enough, we’ll split the group into grades four through seven and eighth grade and up,” in the weekly get-togethers.
Faithlynn, for her part, said she’s a shy person who wants to know more about how to navigate the world outside her family home near Joyce.
She and her siblings are home-schooled, as are several others who came to Olympic Cotillion’s initial meetings.
Faithlynn found out one thing right away: “I love to dance,” she said, adding that she’s game for the rest of the curriculum her mother has planned.
Corey, meantime, has put together an Olympic Cotillion handbook outlining the rules and plans.
For example: No short skirts for the girls, and boys, if your pants have belt loops, you must wear a belt. Everyone will learn how to interact gracefully with everyone else; there will be no coupling up in classes or at the ball.
“We’re holding you to a higher standard,” Corey tells her students.
She encouraged the children and their families to check out local thrift stores when shopping for their business-casual and formal clothes. And Olympic Cotillion has a Facebook page, where members are looking to share and trade.
To cover club expenses, participants pay a membership fee of $40 per family per month; this includes Thursday classes from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. as well as the spring formal ball — a fancy-shmancy event, as Corey likes to call it.
When asked what inspired this project, she said: “Three of my children are teenagers.”
And so many social skills have been lost, she believes — and instead of lamenting that, why not start a club?
“This is a wonderful program, in my opinion, and Minda is an army of one who can pull it off,” said Carol Hathaway, a Port Angeles dance teacher who leads the formal-dance portion of the meetings.
Before the dance lessons started, the boys and girls were not so sure about the hand-holding and all that, Corey added.
“What we found out,” she said, “is that it’s really fun.”
Olympic Cotillion is accepting new participants at its library meeting this Thursday and next Thursday, March 19, both at the Port Angeles Library, 2210 S. Peabody St.
For information, find Olympic Cotillion on Facebook or email Corey at myglorylife@gmail.com.
________
Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5062, or at diane.urbani@peninsuladaily news.com.
