8 mid-Missouri
celebrities compete
for the Title of
"Dancing With Missouri Stars" Champion - 2009
Paired with Ballroom Dance Instructors
from the
Ballroom Academy of Columbia.
Audience members
vote for
their favorite Couple!
Just like the TV show “Dancing with the Stars”
THURSDAY,
MAY 7, 2009 at 7:00 p.m.
Doors open at 6:00 p.m.
Hearnes
Center, Columbia, MO
General
Admission Tickets
$20 Adults
- $15 Students
Tickets available
through the Mizzou Arena box office (573-884-7297) and all
Ticketmaster locations.
Reserved tables on the floor are available.
For sponsorship opportunities and table information contact: Amy Pugh at
amypugh@mac.com - 573-268-7165.
THE EVENING’S COMPETITION
OPENING NUMBER: Performed by Missouri Contemporary Ballet
DANCING ROUND ONE: Each of our celebrity dancers has been paired with a professional ballroom dance instructor from the Ballroom Academy of Columbia and will perform their first dance which they have choreographed together. Following each performance, the dance pair will be interviewed by co-hostess Megan Murphy and critiqued by our panel of judges and given a score between 1 and 10. This score will be combined with their score from Round 2 to arrive at the Judge's Choice Award at the end of the evening. The audience may use the judge's critiques to help guide their voting, but the DWMS Champion will be decided entirely by the votes of the audience.
VOTING ROUND ONE: Following Round One of the competition, audience members will vote with cash or check contributions for their favorite dancing couple(s). There is no limit to the amount they may contribute to each couple. After the votes have been tallied, the top five (5) couples will move on to Round Two (the bottom 3 couples will dance after the second round of voting, as they are still eligible to compete for the Judge's Choice Award).
REWIND DANCES: During the Voting and Intermission, celebrity couples from 2007 and 2008 DWMS will perform a special dance.
DANCING ROUND TWO: The five advancing couples will perform their second dance. Again they will be interviewed and critiqued and scored by our panel of judges.
VOTING ROUND TWO: Again, audience members will be able to vote with cash or check contributions for their favorite dancing couple(s).
INTERMISSION-NON-FINALISTS DANCE: The three non-finalists will perform their second dance to be considered for the Judge's Choice Award.
CLOSING NUMBER: Performed by Missouri Contemporary Ballet
ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE WINNERS: Following a quick tabulation of the votes, the "Dancing With Missouri Stars" Champion 2009 will be announced followed by the winner of the Judge's Choice Award.
WHO’S WHO
CELEBRITIES
JUDY BAKER is the former Missouri State Representative for the 25th District, which includes Boone County. She was recently a candidate for the 9th District Congressional seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Judy was born in Columbia, and after moving frequently as a child with her military family, returned home to Missouri for her education and to raise her family. In addition to her political career, Judy has previously worked as a healthcare executive, a part-time administrative director for the humanitarian organization ACTS International, and an adjunct professor at Columbia College. Judy has represented all of us well in the past. How will she represent herself in the ballroom?
JOHN DESPAIN is a Columbia dermatologist, and founder of DeSpain Dermatology Center and Skintuition Medical Spa, located in the Village of Cherry Hill. He graduated from the University of Missouri, where he also did his dermatology residency training. John is president elect of the Missouri Dermatologic Society. John says that his prior dance experience has been limited to wedding receptions and venues such as the Whitegate Club House, where he has been known to dance while singing along to the Beatles’ “Eight Days a Week”. It will be interesting to see if John’s skin is tough enough to stand the judges’ critiques in this competition.
MAC LEMONE had an excellent dancing role model while he was growing up in Columbia. His father, the late Bob Lemone, was famous for his renditions of “The Gator” and “The Wooly Bully” at various late-night parties for nearly 50 years. Unfortunately those dances don’t transfer well to the ballroom, and “grace” has never been a Lemone family trait. Mac graduated with honors from Mizzou and is currently the Operations/ Project Manager for Little Dixie Construction in Columbia.
AMY LIVESAY and her husband, Mark, are owners of both The Starting Block and Ultramax Events in Columbia. The Starting Block is Columbia’s newest running and multi-sport store, and Ultramax Events is a company that produces, times and supports triathlons and other running and cycling races across the state, and even nationally. A native Columbian, Amy is a graduate of Jefferson Junior High, Hickman High School and the University of Missouri. This five-time Ironman competitor obviously has the strength and stamina to explode out the “starting block” in this year’s DWMS competition.
WANDA NORTHWAY is certainly the “Grande dame” of this year’s competition. A native Columbian and a professional realtor for nearly 40 years, Wanda is a co-founder of House of Brokers Realty. She is a grandmother of two, and has been an avid supporter and contributor to numerous local charities, organizations and restorative projects throughout her lengthy and successful career. Let’s see if Wanda can successfully put the “hard sell” on this year’s judges and audience voters.
CHRIS STEVENS is the Vice President of Relationship Banking at Columbia’s Boone County National Bank. He and his wife, Jennifer Perlow, are also the owners of the Perlow-Stevens Art Gallery in downtown Columbia. A 1991 Mizzou Speech Communications and Art History graduate, Chris says that most of his real education came from working at Booche’s throughout his college years. Chris displays a lot of beautiful things inside his art gallery. What type of things will he display on the dance floor?
JONATHON TIPS is the PGA Head Golf Professional at the Country Club of Missouri in Columbia. Like so many political science majors, Jonathan sought out a life on the links following his graduation from the University of Oklahoma. He became a PGA member in 1997, and following stints at a couple of country clubs in Tulsa, was hired as the head honcho at CCMO in 2004. Jonathan can hit the long ball and has a nifty short game, but will he be able to handle the lateral hazards of the dance floor without making a bunch of double bogies?
MARILYN UPTON, is an independent pilates instructor and personal trainer in Columbia. She is also employed part-time with the Barry Wehmiller Company in St. Louis. A native Canadian, Marilyn moved to Texas when she was 13 and later graduated from Texas Christian University. She moved to Columbia in 1990 when her husband began his family practice residency training at Mizzou, and has remained here ever since. Marilyn says she grew up as a huge fan of the Solid Gold dancers and Lawrence Welk. Let’s hope her moves on stage are more like the former than the latter.
MASTER and MISTRESS OF CEREMONIES
DOUG PUGH, returns as our Master of Ceremonies for the second consecutive year. Doug is a partner with the Columbia law firm Eng & Woods. He is also the author of “Homeboy”, a bi-weekly humor column in the Columbia Daily Tribune. Doug claims to be a sensational dancer in his own right, but prefers to reserve those talents for rave parties and late-night wedding receptions, where he says the lack of judging allows him greater freedom to concentrate on his aggressive stumbling style.
MEGAN MURPHY, Megan Murphy is Columbia's human alarm clock! She's the morning news anchor for KOMU-TV8. Megan graduated from the University of Missouri - Columbia with a degree in Broadcast Journalism and has worked in Mid-Missouri since her 2004 graduation. Megan is the advisor for Center Stage, a local charity that gives free dance lessons to underprivileged children in Mid-Missouri. Her involvement in Center Stage is just the next phase in her dance background. Megan started dancing at the age of three, began teaching at 12, and became captain of her collegiate dance team. She hopes her role as emcee this year will make her a
"shoe in" as a contestant for Dancing With Missouri Stars next year!
PANEL OF JUDGES
FRED PARRY, returns as by far our least qualified dance judge for the
third year in a row. Fred is the owner and publisher of Inside Columbia magazine, and is co-host of the Morning Meeting radio show every weekday morning on KFRU. Neither of these positions, nor anything else in Fred’s colorful background, are related in even the most remote manner to ballroom dancing, which leads us to wonder what he’s doing here to begin with.
VAN ALLEN is CEO of TimeLine Recruiting, a physician recruiting firm based in Columbia. He is also an owner/operator of Hemingway’s Wine & Bistro, the hot-spot which burst on the local restaurant scene last year. Van holds degrees from the world famous and extremely well-known Mary Hardin-Baylor and Southwestern Universities. Regulars at the Country Club of Missouri tell us that Van is accomplished in a wide variety of skills such as golfing, singing and schmoozing, but perhaps not so much ballroom dancing.
He is the reigning 2008 Dancing with Missouri Stars Champion
Dianne Otis began her career in England where at the age of 14 was ranked 3rd in England and 5th in the World as a Junior competitor in the International Latin division and was a member of the British Team representing England in many overseas competitions.
In 1984 she began her Professional career with Perry Gingerich and a highly successful career followed. They began competing in the International Latin Division in England but upon returning to the United States changed to the American Rhythm division. They were finalists in every major championship and have held many major titles. They were 3rd in the United States Championship for 4 years and 2nd for 5 years and retired from active competition in 1996.
Dianne is a Master Adjudicator with the North American Dance Teachers Association and currently resides on St John in the US Virgin Islands but is frequently an adjudicator at many Championship events in the United States and continues to train many competitors both Pro/Amateur and Professional.
Press Coverage
Columbia Tribune - May 2008
Vox Magazine - May 2008
Columbia Tribune April 2009
Join us for a Live Remote with Y107 on Tuesday, April 28th from 4-6 at Hemingway's Wine and Bistro. Everyone is invited to stop by Hemingway's during the remote followed by a wine tasting presented by Golden Barrel.
Sponsored By:
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