It was the large stage production of Riverdance, popular in the late 90s, that made 24-year-old Taylor Middlemiss want to dance.
The smiling faces, the choreographed tapping, the swinging legs and giant, musical story entranced the then-11-year-old.
"I looked into tap classes because that was the closest I could get to Irish dancing," she explained.
That search led her to Rhonda McCulloch Danceology here in Stettler, where she enrolled in classes.
"I was in the non-competitive classes," she said. Having started at such a late age, she didn't have the years of training to be dancing with the competitive classes. It was there, though, that Middlemiss ran into a problem.
All her friends were in a competitive class. She just didn't have the same level of skill to dance with them.
And Miss Rhonda didn't care. Middlemiss was put into the competitive class so she could dance with her friends.
"She said, 'We'll make it work,'" Middlemiss recalled.
The challenge of keeping up with her friends helped her own technique improve.
"I remember what she told me," Middlemiss said. "'Fake it 'til you make it.' And I've carried that with me everywhere. She didn't care if my technique wasn't as good as the others. As long as I kept smiling, as long as I was where I was supposed to be, no one would know."
Though Middlemiss no longer dances, she danced until her 17th year, learning more than just tap. She never did learn Irish Dancing.
"I know how hard she (McCulloch) works," Middlemiss said. "Congratulations on 30 years. You do more for kids than you realize. It's not just dance."
Teaching began at 14McCulloch started teaching dance at the tender age of 14 after her instructor had a baby and had to stop teaching the rest of the season. She and another older dance student took over teaching for the rest of the season, McCulloch recalled.
"The teaching bug bit me then, very much so," she said.
Since then, she's gone on to post-secondary education, earning multiple dance teaching diplomas and certificates. Every few years, the wall of certificates expands by one or two, as continuing her education is just as important to McCulloch as training the next generation of dancers.
"I keep learning about dance, about sport and dance, injury prevention and more," she said. Through her work, she's had the opportunity to learn from and work with dancers from all over the world, including dancers from popular television program "So you think you can dance?"
She started in Stettler shortly after her graduation from post-secondary.
"I had just finished dancing and I was invited by the Stettler Dance Club to teach a summer program," McCulloch remembered. From there, it grew and grew.
"Next thing I knew, I was invited to teach a class a week. There were 20 students, in a room at the top of the stairwell in the (Stettler) Performing Arts Centre."
The room, today, serves as a store room.
"Pretty soon I was up to four days a week, and I signed the lease at our current location," she said. With so many classes and such a small space, the move was inevitable.
The current location has had its share of ups and downs, including a few floods that have had the classes held elsewhere in the community.
"Sometimes I wish we weren't in a basement, but then you come down here and it has such a homey feeling," she said. "You're really comfortable here. Parents and grandparents come to watch their kids dance, the paparazzi comes out when the tutus come on. It's wonderful."
When "Miss Rhonda" opened her first studio in 1983, she didn't realize she'd still be here 30 years later. She doesn't mind, though.
"We have some plans for this year," she said. "We're going to bring back some of our most popular routines from the past three decades, and we'll be dancing at the Dancing for a Cure event at the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium in Edmonton in February."
Part of what keeps McCulloch in Stettler, making the 45-minute drive from Red Deer where she lives, is the dance family she's made here in the community.
"I don't think you could ever teach dance without being present, without your heart and soul in it," she said. "Sometimes I know more about these kids and their lives than their own parents do because I spend so much time with them."
The achievements of these kids, some of whom have gone on to dance internationally, can be big and small, but all matter equally.
"I have a dance with cerebral palsy," McCulloch said. "The day she was able to rise on the balls of her feet, heels off the ground, we all broke into tears. Those major triumphs, when a child gets the concept they've been working on, is magical."