Stepping In Time
For generations of Prairie Grove families,
Labor Day weekend means square dancing.
By Amy Merck, Editor
Emily Sears, left, and her partner, Colt Carter, dance with Chaos & Charm in 2025. They will be dancing in the competition category this year for the first time.
When Kasi Sears moved to Prairie Grove from Corpus Christi, Texas, in 2013, she expected questions about schools, neighborhoods and adjusting to small-town life. Instead, people kept asking something else. “Are your kids square dancing?” Sears remembers thinking, “What kind of town did we move to?” Her family soon found out what everyone in Prairie Grove already knew: she moved to a town where square dancing is the thing.
Square dancing has been part of the Prairie Grove Clothesline Fair for generations and remains one of the community's most distinctive traditions. While many people associate square dancing with older generations, Prairie Groveʼs program continues to grow and attract hundreds of children each year, making it a rite of passage for many local families. Sears said she had not expected her oldest daughter, Emily, who was 5 when they moved to Prairie Grove, to embrace square dancing. “She said, ‘No. Never,’” Sears recalled with a laugh. But Emily kept hearing about it at school and eventually wanted to join. Now, her team, Chaos and Charm, will be dancing together for the fifth year. Her younger sister, Harper, danced in previous years, as well. Participants aren’t limited by athletic ability or school cliques.“It’s not just band kids or sports kids who square dance,” said Mitch Styles, whose son, Ethan, dances with the Rowdy Ramblers. “It’s all the kids.”
More Than a Dance Team
Dylan Cooper and Mini Newman, pictured in their first year dancing together as first graders and later in 2024. This will be their 11th and final year dancing together.
Camaraderie is important in a square-dancing team. Four couples perform a choreographed routine with moves called out by their caller. The event takes place at the Prairie Grove Battlefield State Park, where younger teams begin with simpler routines and don’t compete against each other. Older dancers perform more advanced moves and enter competition when most of the team is 12.
“What makes a good team is amazing chemistry and having no issues or drama,” said Mini Newman, who dances with the Western Wranglers.
Newman and her partner, Dylan Cooper, have danced together since first grade and are now entering their senior year of high school – their last year for dancing.
“You have eight people counting on each other to perform and do it clean, correctly and have fun,” Cooper said. “When the music starts and the crowd is excited and the adrenaline kicks in, it is all so much fun and rewarding.”
Dylan Cooper and Mini Newman, pictured in their first year dancing together as first graders and later in 2024. This will be their 11th and final year dancing together.
Preparing for the Fair
Being part of a team requires commitment. Teams form early and usually practice weekly beginning in the spring – five months before the festival. “Starting in late July, between 6 and 7:30, you can drive around Prairie Grove and see dancers everywhere,” Sears said. “Every inch of concrete at Battlefield Park is filled with dancers.” Teams build floats and ride in the Clothesline Festival parade. Most competition teams have handmade outfits and have professional pictures taken. For the performances, families wear matching team shirts with dancers’ names printed across the back. Parents rotate in and out of front-row seats between performances so each group’s families can move closer to the stage for photos and videos.
Passing It On
It’s a tradition that stretches across generations.
Valerie Doyle remembers hearing stories about square dancing long before she joined a team herself. Her mother danced in Prairie Grove in the 1970s before later calling routines for Doyle, her sister and cousins. “I wanted to do it because of tradition and I wanted to carry it on,” Doyle said. Longtime caller and instructor Cindi Kidd has watched the tradition pass from one generation to the next. Kidd danced in Prairie Grove herself, later taught her own children and now watches her grandson learn the same routines. “It’s amazing how it grew and grew and grew,” Kidd said. “It’s amazing how people caught the bug.” For Kidd, some of the most meaningful moments happen away from the stage. She remembers a parent who stopped her in a store to tell her they found their child at home pretending to call square dances using Barbie dolls, canned foods and toy blocks as dancers. In Prairie Grove, square dancing does not always stay at the Clothesline Fair. Sometimes, the kids take it home with them.