EVENT PREVIEW
Valdosta Father-Daughter Valentine Dance
6-8 p.m. and 9-11 p.m. Feb. 5 and Feb. 6. $15 per person. James H. Rainwater Conference Center, 1 Meeting Place, Valdosta. www.fatherdaughterdance.org.
Next Friday, Savannah Plumly will put on her new dress, don her high heels and head out on a date with her father.
It has been this way since the University of Georgia junior was, oh, about 9 months old and her mother Cindy Kay would dress her, comb her hair, strap her in the car seat and send the two of them on their way.
Of course, back then Savannah couldn’t talk and was barely crawling, but it didn’t matter. Wayne Plumly simply carried his little girl in his arms until finally she could do that silly Chicken Dance on her own two feet.
Like Savannah, the annual Valdosta Father-Daughter Valentine Dance was in its infancy, but Plumly had no intentions of missing it. Ever.
And so come Feb. 5, they will step out yet again for the annual bash because, well, that’s what they’ve always done.
It’s a long-held Plumly tradition but not one limited to them.
For 20 years now, fathers and daughters have been turning out for the annual dance in record numbers and from as far away as the West Coast.
The idea for the dance came to Jeff Stewart back in the winter of 1996, when he read about one in Pittsville, Mass.
This would be great for our community, Stewart thought to himself.
He told his wife, Becky, about the dance and then his pastor, who agreed they could host the dance at their church.
Because there weren’t that many young families at the First Presbyterian Church of Valdosta, they knew it had to be a communitywide event. The big question looming was how to get it done.
They reached out to Jim Massery, the brains behind the Pittsville dance. Keep it simple, Massery told them, and so they did.
They agreed on a date, printed up a few fliers to advertise the event, and collected a few refreshments. Cookies. Crackers. Cheese. Cupcakes. Chips and Cheetos, the latter of which soon disappeared from the menu because they left fingers caked with an orange mess.
Even the dress code was simple. There was none.
Sure, they hoped everyone dressed up and looked nice, but that was hardly important. Having fun was.
Indeed the only thing Stewart and his crew fuss over is the decorations. Each year, they bring in six chandeliers to be installed and this year will add 18 decorative trees and audio visual with a live feed of the dancing.
“We think it’s going to be awesome,” Stewart said.
That first year, tickets went for $5 per person, and about 170 fathers and daughters, more than they’d expected, showed up.
Each year, the turnout has gotten bigger and bigger, climbing from a few hundred to more than 5,300 in 2015, making it what is believed to be the largest father-daughter dance in the nation.
“We outgrew the auditorium of our church. so we moved the second year,” Stewart said. “We moved again the third year and a fourth time in February 2000 to the James H. Rainwater Conference Center.”
The event has gotten to be so massive, it’s downright intimidating, but the Stewarts are undaunted. Instead of one dance the weekend before the official Valentine’s observance, they now schedule four sessions: two on Friday, Feb. 5, and two on Saturday, Feb. 6.
Tickets, now $15 a pop, quickly sell out. Proceeds help finance First Presbyterian’s mission projects.
In case you haven't already guessed, I love these kinds of stories, but I also know that there are some who believe father-daughter dances somehow reinforce stereotypes about gender roles and encourage our daughters' beliefs that they are princesses awaiting their Prince Charming, a guy just like dear old dad.
Even us moms who feel quality time with dad is important cringe at the notion because in our heart of hearts we believe fathers don’t really need an excuse to spend time with their daughters and so don’t need their own special dance.
Given the high rates of divorce and domestic violence, I'm not so sure.
What I will say is that even though my daughters have never gone to a dance with their dad, they absolutely adore him, and after all these years of watching him love me, I sometimes wonder if their guy will ever be able to measure up.
But here’s the good news: Studies show that girls with strong bonds with their fathers do better in all facets of life, including romantic relationships, than girls who don’t.
Massery, Stewart and Plumly each told me that while strengthening the bonds between dads and daughters is an important part of why they do this, it is not the most important one. Modeling to their daughters how they should be treated on a date is.
“I imagine if she goes on a date with a jerk, she will identify him pretty quickly,” said Stewart, who still attends the dance with his daughters, Macy, 27, and Melissa, 22.
Bottom line, it’s become a family tradition. And for families like the Stewarts and the Plumlys, a very long one.
After all these years, Savannah still looks forward to doing the Chicken Dance with her dad.
“It’s our favorite,” she said. “We love it because you can be goofy and nobody really cares if you can dance or not.”
