The waves crashing on the shore, the breeze running through the trees and sipping out of coconuts on the hot sand, these are all things the Silver Stars are waiting to enjoy in the upcoming year.

Our dance team is planning on taking a trip to Hawaii in March to go dance and compete. In order to make this happen, the Silver Stars must raise enough money to be able to afford this major trip. The  team has been doing all different kinds of fundraising this school year in an effort to make  enough money to  participate in the competition this spring.

“We are planning on having a bake sale and a yard [sale]. We also are selling mums and poinsettias after school by the kennel,” junior Katherine Werchan said.

The Silver Stars still have competitions leading up to their trip to Hawaii. The girls on planning to compete in various different styles of dance tournaments in Hawaii, as well as other places in Austin.

“We will have two competitions in February before we go to Hawaii in March. There are still team competitions where we compete multiple styles of dances,” Silver Star captain senior Morgan Andrews said.

The girls have gone on many different trips in the past years for their dance competitions.

“We go on a team trip every other year, so my sophomore year we went to Chicago,” Andrews said.

They’re not only going to dance, but they are also going to spend lots of time together and have a ton of fun on the island.

“We are planning to go to a dance competition in Hawaii as well as going to a luau, snorkeling and [taking] an island tour,” Werchan said.

The team has practices and activities that they do all year long in order to keep them occupied in the fall and spring seasons.

“They only do three [competitions] per year and the last one is in Hawaii this coming year,” parent Alice Werchan said. “It’s nice they are compacted in a short couple of weeks.  The days are long and the dancers work really hard during the months leading up to it.  I think [that] three is a reasonable number of competitions, considering they have other activities the rest of the year. [For example], football {season}  is August-November, spring show is March-April, with [a] competition season in between.”

Parents of the Stars are satisfied with their daughters having three competitions.

“I don’t think that I would want more [competitions] and doing [less] wouldn’t be enough for all the work they do. I know that some of those same dances are used in the Spring Show, but they wok so hard on them, you want them to be seen.” Alice said.

The girls are all looking forward to taking an exotic trip to somewhere new.

“I’m so excited for Hawaii because the girls have wanted to go to Hawaii for so long,” Andrews said.

Hawaii wasn’t the only option the Silver Stars had for this trip, it had been changed a bit before the final decision.

“We knew early on that they would be taking a trip in March 2018  because they take a trip every other year,” Alice said. “We heard in June that they would be going to Seattle,  but then it got changed in either late August or early September.”

Even though the parents wanted the Silver Stars to go to Hawaii, the girls agreed that they would prefer to go somewhere a little more exotic.

“We got a new director and I guess they decided to go some place warmer and more tropical. There was a vote by parents and Stars and Hawaii won,”Alice said.

Parents of the girls dance team have been taking time out of their schedules to volunteer to help fundraise and organize their upcoming fundraising events.

“We are helping promote the sale of Poinsettias, Tamales, Snap Crowd Funding and I can’t remember what else.  [We] send emails to friends and family, social media advertising, co-workers, just [to get] the word out. It’s not much different than a regular year, but just more of it,” Alice said.

The whole team is planning on going on the trip, including some of the Silver Stars’ parents as well as the two dance directors,  Leanne Bilnoski and Emily Davis.

“It is still a ways off, but I know when it gets closer to the trip I will be excited, I’m actually going as a chaperone.  I have not been [to Hawaii] in 15 years or so and it is very beautiful, so it will be fun to be there with the [Silver Stars].  It will be a lifelong memory since they are all going together, it’s not your normal field trip,” Alice said.