NOTE: “Today” and “tonight” refer to Friday, March 27.
PORT ANGELES — Dreams will be showcased tonight when 18 bands, dancers, singers and musicians vie for the title of Most Talented Act in Port Angeles in support of the dream of a young girl to walk with both feet on the ground.
Among those performing at the sixth annual Benefit and Talent Show will be the beneficiary, Hayden Webber, who hopes to get an operation to correct a condition that has left her right leg too short to allow her to walk on it.
Hayden, a 9-year-old student at Queen of Angels school in Port Angeles, will be first on the stage.
She will sing from a repertoire that ranges from show tunes to 1980s rock.
“I hope she doesn’t get up there and get stage fright,” said her mother, Jodi Thies.
The show will begin at 7 p.m. at Port Angeles High School, 304 E. Park Ave.
Doors will open at 6:15 p.m. A silent auction is planned before the show.
Tickets will be sold at the door for $8 per adult, $5 per student and $20 for a family of four. Only cash or checks will be accepted.
Thies said music is in the family.
Hayden’s dad, Steven Webber, plays several instruments and has begun teaching Hayden to play the guitar and piano.
Born with condition
Hayden was born with a condition known as proximal focal femoral deficiency, which caused her right femur to grow bent, twisted and shorter than her left.
She walks using a “third foot,” a brace for her shortened leg that acts as a prosthetic to match the length of her healthy leg.
Her family has found a specialty clinic in Florida where Hayden can get leg-lengthening surgery and a new knee so she can walk with both feet on the ground.
The family will need to relocate there for at least two months, Thies said.
They are waiting to hear from their insurance company to learn how much of their expenses will be covered, Thies said, but she anticipates that many will not be.
Among them: a pre-surgical exam in July, two trips two and from Florida, and the family’s living expenses during the two-month procedure and therapy.
Donations for Hayden also can be made at www.gofundme.com/surgeries-for-Hayden. As of Thursday, $8,726 had been raised of a $60,000 goal.
Silent auction items
Silent auction items include four Seattle Seahawks preseason football tickets — two each for two games — gift baskets and gift certificates or gift cards from local businesses.
Concessions will be available by donation.
This year’s theme is “Broadway Dreams,” and the masters of ceremonies for the show will be students Ian Brumbaugh, Stephanie Dudley and Matt Groves, said Dana Snell, adviser of the student leadership class.
Judges will be selected from high school staff members, Snell said.
Each year, the Port Angeles High student leadership class selects a community member to be the beneficiary of talent show proceeds — usually those with health crises and difficulties paying for medical needs.
Past recipients
In the 2010 inaugural talent show, the recipient was Tammy Goodwin, a Sequim High School graduate and mother of two Port Angeles graduates.
Goodwin died March 14, 2010, at the age of 47 after a long battle with a sarcoma, a cancer of the soft tissue.
In 2011, the class selected Cornerstone Tabernacle Pastor Kevin Jones, who was undergoing treatment for an aneurism because of a genetic heart condition.
Jones and his family have since moved from the area.
The 2012 students selected Camille Frazier, a Port Angeles schools para-educator.
Frazier died June 12, 2014, after a long fight with a rare and aggressive form of breast cancer.
In 2013, the leadership class selected Liz Romero, mother of five PAHS graduates.
Romero died Dec. 15, 2012, after a three-year battle with an aggressive brain tumor called a glioblastoma multiforme.
Students chose to hold the talent show benefit in her memory and donated the funds to her family.
The 2014 recipient, Justine Raphael, was the mother of the 2013-14 student body council president.
Raphael died Nov. 2, 2014, of a rare and aggressive inflammatory breast cancer.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arice@peninsuladailynews.com.
