Amy (the director of the Dupree School 21st Century After School Grant) and I had planned for a one and done "Family and Friends" recital. She and I wrote to the nonprofit, Footloose, to petition for ballet shoes and she solicited her family for donations for costumes. What we forgot was that "family" to the Lakota and ranching families means is half the town of 500! We had quite the showing. Nerves (mine and the girls) were palpable, but the girls nailed it. I remember looking on from the wings and being moved to tears. It wasn't until after the recital that I realized that one girl in particular (one quite serious about her ballet) looked so different and beautiful because she was beaming. It was one of the few times I remember her smiling in the five months I knew her. After the show, I couldn't go anywhere around town without someone (who I knew or not) stopping me amd saying "You made me cry. It was beautiful!" or "I heard you did a really good job with those ballet girls." My ballet program had been the only ballet program in most living memories. And so we decided we had to do round 2...a second show in the school's elementary school concert. Who knew that a rural South Dakota town could rally behind something like ballet. And who knew that a class (of what ended up being 50% dance and 50% group therapy) could create such a change in the girls and me. In the first moment I saw them on stage, I didn't know it was possible to be so proud.