Dancing into retirement

FINDLAY — Over the past 60 years, thousands of students have learned their first shuffles, jazz walks and pirouettes at Becky's School of Dance. Now the school's original owner and director, Becky Taylor McClincy, will take her final bow onstage during the spring recital. "If they called and asked me to do something, I would probably do it. I still enjoy it," she said. "But it's time for me to step back and let the young ones take over. "It's hard to take that step, though." McClincy was a Findlay High School senior when her dance teacher approached her parents and told them she was leaving town. Then she asked Onalee and LeRoy Taylor if they'd wanted to buy the studio which was then located on Trenton Avenue. "And they said 'yes.' Then they came and asked me. I'm like, 'well, it's my senior year.' So it just came into fruition and I took over," McClincy recalled. Since she didn't have a car, McClincy walked from the high school to the studio where she spent her evenings giving lessons. She graduated from high school in 1965 — the same year her students gave their first recital. McClincy started out with 60 students from 3-years-old to high school age. Eventually, adult classes were added, she said. Dancing wasn't anything new to McClincy, who had started taking lessons when she was 5. At the time, the studio was owned by Cathleen Concannon; she and her husband and daughter all taught there. "I wanted to take ballet," McClincy recalled. "My dance teacher said, well, we only have a tap class now and I wouldn't start. So I waited until the following year when I was 5 so I could take ballet." At that time, she said, there was only one graded system of ballet, called the Cecchetti method. "So I started taking Cecchetti classes from my teacher and then she would take us to Cleveland and we would be adjudicated. And they would mark you off if your foot was wrong or whatever," said McClincy. She said the results were pass, pass plus, pass commended or pass highly commended. And students weren't allowed to know how they scored — possibly because the teacher didn't want any conflict in the studio, she said. McClincy went up through level five of the program. But that went by the wayside when she married John McClincy and they began their family which would eventually include three children and seven grandchildren. "We were a busy household," she said. "We also had racehorses, bred them and raced them. And our children all had 4-H horses." They all helped with the business and running the shows, she said. Changes The studio moved to its current location — a former church — at 15440 U.S. 224 West in 1996. "My mother-in-law was here and she kept saying, that would make a nice dance studio. And I said, I know, but I don't think John's interested right now. And she said, well, we'll just pray on it, and she just prayed and prayed, and it happened," said McClincy. After 37 years, McClincy's daughter, Meghan McClincy-Woolley, bought the business. At the time, they were both teaching and had over 600 students. "It was great fun, and then Meghan took over and made even more improvements to where she would take her students every two years on a trip," said McClincy. They would go to New York City and study with professionals then attend nightly shows. Becky's students have also danced at Disney World, on Carnival Cruise Ships and at Cleveland Cavaliers games. "I mean, how can it not be fun," McClincy said. "And along the way, we've met so many wonderful people. You really take them to heart." "I just hope it can go on and just continue to be what it's been," she said. "Like I said, it's so good for so many of those little students. It helps their rhythm and coordination. It helps their social skills. It helps their spatial awareness, even if they take one, two, three years, it does them so much good." Locally, dance students have performed for community events like the Susan G. Komen Race for a Cure and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. And they donated about $45,000 over four or five years to the American Cancer Research of Ohio. Curtain call There is one main show each year — the spring recital. During the event this year, McClincy will be recognized for her 60 years helping in one form or another. "It's a long time. I had a lot of help. I had terrific parents and all my aunts and uncles were involved in our dance recitals, either making scenery or ushering, and it's just a big family affair," she said. "It was just a lot of fun." The show will be held at 6:30 p.m. May 17 and at 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. May 18 at the Marathon Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets are $22, available at the door. "This is my last year I'm going to go out on stage. I've only been in it halfway for so long. I said, they don't need to celebrate me anymore. It's time to celebrate themselves," McClincy said. McClincy-Woolley said her mother doesn't understand how important her contribution has been. "She poured so much love into us when she taught us, and I think she was a mother to a lot of us. So her not doing this anymore is a like a big deal," she said. In 2021, McClincy-Woolley's daughter, Kaitlyn Emerine-Orians, became the current owner and director of Becky's School of Dance, Home of the Findlay Academy of Ballet, "Meghan loves the business as much as I did, but she became ill and her health made her step back. But she still helps Kaitlyn," said McClincy. The Findlay woman said she sometimes gets letters from past students telling her what they've done with their dance. She has a student who is now the director of entertainment at Universal Studios. Another student and her husband wrote a book on jazz exercises. "I love hearing from them because I will always wonder where these kids went and what they're doing," she said. Some have even gone on to become dance instructors themselves, said McClincy-Woolley. "It's been such a blessing. The changes that have happened around here have always been for the good," McClincy said. "We've been lucky and blessed."