photo credit: pchgorman

Founder’s Day is just around the corner. There’s a lot planned to celebrate Zephyrhills’ centennial, but what’s going on at Zephyrhills High School? A good old fashion Barn Dance, that’s what!

The Old-Fashion Barn Dance will be held on Friday, March 12 in the ZHS Activity Center. The dance is a fundraiser for the ZHS Chorus Program. The Chorus and Band will be performing at the Music Festival in Washington, D.C. in early April of this year. All proceeds from the Barn Dance will help the students raise money for the trip.

“The dance will help them do that, but it will also show folks how our Zephyrhills pioneers entertained themselves during the early years of the town,” said ZHS Chorus director and music teacher Louise Gore.

If you’ve never been to a barn dance before or even don’t even know what one is, you are in for a real treat! According to Louise, the dance will be run like the Tampa Friends of Old Time Dance run their events. There will actually be a caller teaching and calling the dances.

The dances, mostly line and circle dances, are some that were brought over from England, Ireland, Scotland, and France. Some of the dancers are called mixers because there are partner changes throughout. You get to meet everyone who came to dance that way!

“Think the Virginia Reel,” Louise said. “The dances are not that difficult, which makes them great for the whole family: everyone from elementary-school age to grandparents can do them!”

The event will start around 6:00PM and run until 10:00PM. Cookies and old fashioned lemonade will be available in the lobby during the dance. Entrance is only $5, and the event is open to the public.

The dance is almost like a warm-up for Founder’s Day and, like Louise said, will provide people with a different “date night” than they have seen in at least 60 years!!