When Gussie Nell Davis came to Kilgore in 1940, she realized she needed to learn how to dance. And she needed to be able to teach others how to dance as well. So she called Denard Haden.
Haden was already a successful dance instructor in the area. He had opened a dance studio in Nacogdoches, and was widening his circle to include classes in Henderson, then the Blue Room of the Kilgore Hotel when he met Miss Davis.
However, WWII dragged him off the dance floor and into the U.S. Navy as a medic. A stand-out student at Stephen F. Austin State University, he had also been a high school principal and an English teacher, but the call of his true love was too strong.
“He could have been a Broadway choreographer in New York City,” said his niece, Priscilla “Prissy” Abshier Sliva. “But he missed his family too much.”
Hayden came back to Kilgore at Miss Davis’ request in 1947 as a full-time choreographer to the popular college dance line.
“Miss Davis said to him, ‘You need to come and be on the floor with the Rangerettes. You need to inspire them. You need to show them your creativity. If there’s a routine that you have developed, maybe you need to change it or maybe somebody needs to. But for me to teach your dance is not as good as if you could come and do it yourself,’” Sliva recalled. “And with that, he transitioned dance from the stage to the football field.”
By 1950, he had developed the first drill team/dance camp and was teaching the precision-style routines to high school groups across the region. Halftimes were becoming more creative as girls aspired to come to Kilgore College to perform. Over 100 of Haden’s dance students later became Rangerettes. But of those he influenced, young Prissy soaked up her uncle’s experiences in a personal way.
“I do not ever remember a time that I did not want to be a Rangerette,” Sliva said, recalling how her uncle would show up at their house to tell his sister (Sliva’s mother, Rachel) about his work with the college students. Sliva’s dream came true earlier than most, as she represented KC her junior and senior years of high school.
“I was Rangerette before I was Rangerette,” Sliva said. “The first summer, somebody got married and at the last minute they had to have somebody to fill in. I had so much dancing that Miss Davis said, ‘I know you can do it.’”
That year, she went to Soldier Field in Chicago to perform with the Rangerettes, as well as to the Cotton Bowl. The second summer saw her in a movie being filmed in downtown Kilgore called the “Seven Wonders of the World.” There they were tagged “Sweethearts of the Gridiron.”
When she graduated from high school in 1955, Sliva became a Rangerette for real. She was named lieutenant her freshman year and captain her sophomore year. She was also the Head Swingster both years at KC. In the spring of 1956, she won Miss Kilgore, then competed in the Miss Texas pageant where she won the talent portion to become a finalist. She and a fellow dance student also took their talent to an all-state college contest at Texas A&M, “and we beat out everyone at the bigger schools.”
Sliva spent seven summers working alongside her uncle at his summer camp, “The Road’s End Farm” at Caddo Lake. Not only did it bring in famous choreographers, it also gave Sliva a chance to stretch her own legs in the dance world, as she spent two years on staff teaching drill team classes. She would later establish several drill teams in the Houston area, including the North Shore Scarlets at North Shore High School where Betty Longacre would participate in drill team. Longacre’s daughter, Shelley Stoeck Wayne (current Rangerette choreographer) would also perform on the same line, serving as the captain in the mid-‘80s.
Dancing soon turned to business for Sliva when she saw a problem that needed fixing.
“As I was teaching these camps, people were saying, ‘You know, I wish we had a lighter pom.’ They really couldn’t get their pompons up on the right count because they were too heavy,” Sliva said. “So I told my husband, ‘I think we can come up with something.’’
Her husband, Bob, was a high school football coach at Texas City, but he soon came into the dance business as well. In addition to Sliva’s Drill Team Supply (the first of its kind), other businesses soon followed, such as The Cheering Section, Sport Specialty and Pepco Promotional. The Slivas not only succeeded in building a better pompon, they also went on to promote their business as far as Puerto Rico and Munich, Germany. The company is now the largest manufacturer of pompons in the world and the only manufacturer of large cheerleader megaphones, according to Sliva. Currently, it is listed as a female-owned business that, after more than 50 years, employs 150 people. All of the materials and products are made in America.
“My uncle is how we got to my business. And my parents and my husband are the reason that we have a business now,” she said. It is this endeavor that has opened the doors for Sliva to do what she wants to do today, which is to bless others.
“Renovating the KC Dance Studio is important to me because my uncle was so influential, and I wouldn’t have been a Rangerette without him,” she said. “And I want to do something for the Rangerettes too, because I would not be who I am and I would not have my business if it weren’t for them. I owe everything to him, to Gussie Nell Davis and the Rangerettes.”
In addition to the renovation, which will be unveiled at 5 p.m. on Sunday, April 6, in the Parks Fitness Center in Kilgore, Sliva is also funding four scholarships at KC. Sliva’s daughter, Julie Sliva Aaronson, was also a captain of the Rangerettes, marking the only time a mother and daughter have been captains.
“I want to give while I’m still living because I want to see happy people from what I can give,” she said. In addition to KC, Sliva is also funding a K9 waiting room in the new multi-million dollar vet hospital at Texas A&M in honor of her son, Jeff, who recently passed away. She is also in the process of working with the SFA Dance Department for naming rights of a studio after Haden in their Fine Arts Building.
For 33 years, Haden worked alongside Davis to give the Rangerettes their distinctive look and style. His influence still reverberates throughout the dance world today and Sliva wants others to remember. However, Haden understood the magnitude of drill team – maybe before anyone else did.
“I feel that I have been a part of something truly great and that I’ve helped to bring into focus a unique art form that is a true piece of Americana,” he said. “Not many people have had that opportunity.”
Article by Rachel Stallard/KC