Longtime teacher hangs up her ballet slippers

By DANIELLE RUSH Tribune staff writer Betty Hayes took her first dance lesson at age 4. “My grandmother took me to dance school because she said I was too shy,” Hayes said, recalling that she cried at the lesson. “She said, ‘If you cry, I’m going to give you a spanking,’” Hayes said, so she stopped crying and participated in the class. Now 87, Hayes is hanging up her ballet slippers in August, after teaching her final class. She opened the Betty Hayes School of Dance in Kokomo in 1950, first on the Courthouse Square and then on Hoffer Street. Hayes closed her school in January, but has continued to teach at the Kristie Wright School of Dance. After retirement, she plans to continue teaching her Saturday adult dance class, because several of those students have been with her for 30 years. She plans to add to her exercise dance... [read full story]