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Biography
Patsy (Patty) was born in Muskogee, OK and
grew up in the surrounding countryside of
Broken Arrow, a large suburb of Tulsa.
She studied classical piano for 12 years and played the organ, trumpet, and alto saxaphone by her early teens. She also played the French Horn in one of the most successful and nationally recognized high school marching bands in the country, the Pride of Broken Arrow. During her senior year, she was asked to substitue for the Principal French Horn in the Tulsa Youth Symphony after he had broken his left arm.
Patsy's ballroom dance career began in her senior year of high school when she responded to a newspaper ad calling for dance teachers with no dance experience. The exposure to the ballroom and ballroom music turned Patsy into a ballroom dancer overnight. However, shortly after graduating from high school Patsy auditioned for and was hired as a vocalist and keyboardist at the Country Music Show Palace in Branson, MO. When the season ended in the fall she returned to her new passion, ballroom dancing.
Patsy moved to Orlando in 1992 to be closer to the abundant coaching in Florida, which was virtually non-existent in Oklahoma. At the time, she was competing professionally in Cabaret dance. She was certified in the Bronze, Silver, Associate, and Associate Dance Director levels by Fred Astaire Dance Studio Inc. within one year of moving to Orlando and, for a short time, was the Dance Director for the Winter Park Fred Astaire Dance Studio Inc.
When both Fred Astaire Dance studios in the Orlando area closed, Patsy became an independent ballroom instructor. Between the years of 1996 and 1998, Patsy rented floorspace from a local ballet school in Kissimmee/St. Cloud (Raskin Dance Studios) and taught independent ballroom classes. She had enough students to open her own studio when Raskin graciously offered her part of their new building, thus the opening of the Paradise Ballroom Dance Club.
In 2001, Patsy started a professional American Rhythm dance partnership with nationally recognized Top Teacher, Herb Vasquez, from West Palm Beach. For two years, the two met in Port St. Lucie twice a week to practice. At the same time, she was going to community college, teaching dance classes every night, competing out of state on some weekends, and renting her studio for wedding receptions or hosting ballroom dances. She transferred to UCF in 2004, and was inducted into the Burnett Honors College program in 2006. Patsy reluctantly closed her studio during the summer of 2006 to better focus on the demands of writing her undergraduate thesis entitled "Civilized Dancing: The Evolution of Ballroom Dancing from African Trance and Folk Dance," part of which was published. Patsy is currently continuing research into the history of ballroom dancing in the hopes of writing her first book.
Patsy received her Bachelor in Humanities/Religious Studies Track in 2007, and then decided to continue into the graduate program. She graduated with a Master in Anthropology/Maya Studies Track from UCF in the summer of 2009, and her thesis is currently being reviewed for publication by a major publisher, with another one asking to review it as well. Part of her graduate work involved living in the remote jungle of Belize for 5 weeks while digging for ancient Maya ruins, a completely different expectation from the demands of the ballroom world.
Patsy is now writing two columns for the Examiner.com. As the Orlando Ballroom Dancing Examiner, Patsy's articles cover anything that involves ballroom dance, especially in the Orlando area. The topics range from ballroom history to current local dance events, profiles of Orlando professionals and studios, dancewear, and dance tips. As the National Ancient Maya Examiner, Patsy educates the public about the currently accepted theories involving the on-going archaeological research surrounding the ancient Maya civilization.
Patsy will begin teaching ballroom ballroom classes at the University of Central Florida in the spring of 2011. She has also returned to teaching dance and performing, which remain her passions to this day.
