THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 5, 1994 TAG: 9406030237
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Susie Stoughton
DATELINE: 940605 LENGTH: Medium
The dancing duo - Franklin's version of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers - teach ballroom dancing and social graces to a group of sometimes gangly, often giggly, almost-grown-up boys and girls.
{REST} They teach the preteens and newly turned teenagers how to do the cha-cha, swing, fox trot and waltz, as well as modern dances like the electric slide.
But the adolescents also learn something of the almost lost art of etiquette - how to sit, stand, walk across a room, ask someone to dance and accept graciously. They get a dose of manners along with the do-si-do.
``We teach children to be congenial with one another in a social gathering,'' said Billy Phillips, 57. ``How to get along with the opposite gender.''
The owner of Billy Phillips Ltd. on Franklin's Main Street, he has been teaching the box step and the two-step for 41 years. When he was a junior at the former Boykins High School, he started giving tap, ballet and jazz lessons one afternoon a week for students at Capron Elementary School.
The next year he also taught at Newsoms Elementary School and held ballroom classes at night at the Newsoms Community Center. Soon he was also teaching in Courtland and Drewryville.
``It was just an after-school job, like a boy going to work in a grocery store,'' said Toni Phillips, 52. ``It just has lasted a lifetime.''
Soon Billy Phillips, who started taking dance lessons before first grade, was teaching full time, traveling to Richmond, Chesterfield County, Petersburg, Colonial Heights and to Murfreesboro and Ahoskie, N.C.
Several years later, he met his future wife, then a freshman at Longwood College, at a Christmas dance in Suffolk. During the last year of their four-year courtship, she became his dance partner, accompanying him to lessons.
``And she's helped me ever since,'' he said.
They continued dancing together after their two daughters, JoAnna, 26, and MaryAnna, 21, were born. After he opened the clothing store on Main Street in 1961, he started teaching part time, cutting back on some of the lessons.
Fifteen years ago, a group of parents of seventh- and eighth-graders at Southampton Academy in Courtland asked Phillips to teach their children ballroom dancing. That year, he held the first spring cotillion, a series of 10 classes every other Saturday night ending with a formal dance.
Eventually, the cotillion was limited to seventh-graders, but the academy students invited - or ``sponsored'' - friends from other schools. More than 90 attended this spring, but Phillips said he likes to keep the enrollment at about 80, which is more manageable.
This year, the group also included students from S.P. Morton Middle School in Franklin, Southampton Middle School in Courtland, Windsor Middle School and Isle of Wight and Nansemond-Suffolk academies.
Every other year, the couple also teaches debutantes sponsored by the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority in Franklin.
Often, a transformation occurs between the first class and the last, Billy Phillips said. The first night, the boys and girls look across the gym in absolute awe, seeing classmates and longtime friends all dressed up.
``They're thinking, `Who are these people over there?' '' he said.
At the formal, class members stand in a receiving line as their families come into the gymnasium. Then the couples are presented - each young man escorting a temporary ``date'' arranged by Phillips, and they demonstrate the dances they've learned.
``Then we stop the music and all the parents come down and join in and dance with their child,'' Toni Phillips said.
Finally, the adults are ``invited'' to leave, and the budding socialites enjoy the party for the rest of the evening.
Working with adolescents is rewarding, Billy Phillips said.
``I can hug them and quarrel with them at the same time,'' he said. ``The seventh grade is probably the most mixed up year of their life. The little girls play with Barbie dolls one day; the next day they're putting makeup on.''
He and his wife plan to keep on dancing and working with the youngsters, Phillips said.
``Children - I like them,'' he said. ``And they know it.''
by CNB