Taking a chance to dance

Tue., June 6, 2006

By Benjamin Shors benjamins@spokesman.com

As the music thumped, the boys from East Valley High School – ties carefully knotted, shirts pressed, hair styled just so – casually knocked back another soda and surveyed the dance floor. Josh Werre, 14, and Zackery Kauwe, 19, peered through the crowd of students, searching out the object of Kauwe’s intentions, a demure and neatly dressed classmate. Kauwe, a developmentally disabled student, had already hit the dance floor multiple times but was itching for another go-round. “Anything you play, he’ll dance to it,” Werre said, and Kauwe laughed. The Pavilion at Northern Quest Casino, site of Monday’s Spring Fling prom for special-needs students and young adults, pulsed with a thick bass as the Baha Men asked, “Who Let the Dogs Out?” The Kalispel Tribe of Indians’ Camas Institute sponsored the dance and lunch, providing some 300 students from Spokane

Public Schools, East Valley and other districts with a break from the school day.

The students milled through the pavilion, queuing up for photos, sitting quietly at the tables, tugging reluctant partners to the dance floor.

Michelle Twiggs, 19, stood between her boyfriend and her ex, adjusting the spaghetti straps of her bird’s-egg-blue dress and futilely exhorting the boys to dance with her and her friend Malia Boatman, 15.

“The guys just better shape up,” Twiggs said with an exaggerated sigh. “They’re being a pain.”

Twiggs’ boyfriend, 19-year-old Troy Richardson, nodded approvingly at the decorations.

“What they need for next year is probably a disco ball,” he said.

At a nearby table, a softball squad from Rogers High School was engaged in a raucous retelling of last week’s come-from-behind victory, slapping one another on the shoulders in congratulations. The Pirates liked their odds for this week’s tournament.

“We’re going to do better than average, I’m thinking,” said Kenny Edwards, the team’s 20-year-old catcher and third baseman.

T.J. Ives, 21, was less circumspect. “We’re undefeated,” he said, sipping a soda.

At a table near the back, John McKinney, 18, Ryan Parker, 17, and Tiras Smith, 15, sat in quiet discussion. “I danced already,” Parker explained.

Smith adjusted his baseball cap, pulling it low over his eyes, then leaned in conspiratorially.

“The only bad thing,” he said quietly, “is the teachers are here.”

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