Prom for the ages

Bob Lyford had his hands full.

As the Churchill High School Jazz Band struck up the 1933 show tune, “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” the dapper 92-year-old twirled Lena Jensen on his left hand and then Delaney Swan on his right.

Was he surprised that not one, but two girls asked him to dance — at the same time?
“I certainly was,” Lyford said afterward. “I needed two — to hold me up!”

For the seventh straight year, National Honor Society students, as well as band and choir members from Churchill, walked across the street on Friday to the Churchill Estates Retirement Community and put on another Senior Prom.

“It’s really rewarding,” said Jensen, a Churchill senior. “Seeing his face when we were dancing with him, it’s like the happiest face I’ve seen in a long time.”

The students spent the past month planning the prom, helped by a video of last year’s Hollywood-themed event, senior Rachel Rimmer said.

This year’s theme? Las Vegas, baby.

(What happens in a retirement home, stays in a retirement home?)

There was a copy of the iconic “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada” sign above the fireplace, playing cards strung along the back wall, vases full of poker chips on the tables and red, silver and black balloons floating above them.

There was also a spread of food, with deli meats, fruit skewers, heart-shaped sugar cookies with red-and-white frosting and pomegranate-flavored club soda.

And there was the usual nervousness at a social dance.

“The best part is watching which of the National Honor Society students has the gumption to go up and ask one of the seniors to dance,” said Al Villanueva, Churchill’s choir instructor.

A few moments later, after Villanueva’s Downing Street Singers had performed the 1965 James Brown classic, “I Got You (I Feel Good),” the singers began to slowly spread across the room, the boys in all black, and the girls in their royal-blue dresses.

Villanueva slid behind Churchill Principal BJ Blake and said: “We’re going to try to break the dancing ice.”

“Excellent — I’m so excited,” said Blake, who came to Churchill this school year from Spencer Butte Middle School, and thus was enjoying her first Senior Prom.

Junior Kassidy Benson, one of the Downing Street Singers, certainly had enough gumption to ask 84-year-old Gene Fanning to dance, as the couple hit the dance floor first, quickly followed by Lyford and his two dancing girls.

“Oh, I just saw him there, and he looked pretty happy, so I wanted to dance with him,” Benson said.

“I love coming here, because the people are just wonderful and so interesting,” said Benson, who was also part of last year’s event. “It’s such a sweet environment, bringing joy to people.”

Wanda York, 90, hasn’t missed a Senior Prom yet, having lived at Churchill Estates for eight years.

Two girls asked her to dance Wednesday.

“So I danced with them,” York said. “It made me feel happy. And that music was beautiful. It just makes you feel so young.”

They asked me how I knew

My true love was true

I of course replied

Something here inside cannot be denied

After dancing to those “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” lyrics, Lyford, who grew up taking dancing lessons in Butte, Mont. (Butte High School, class of 1940), and ran Lyford Electric in Eugene for years, said dancing with those girls “was kind of fun. But they expect a lot more of me than I’m capable of, of course.”