Carmen Butler (DCC ’05-08) has been named the Manager of the Oklahoma City Thunder Girls- the cheerleaders for the Oklahoma City Thunder NBA team!  In addition to managing the Thunder Girls, she will also continue to develop the Thunder’s junior dance team, the Raindrops.  To read the entire press release, click here. Way to go Carmen- best of luck!

Erica Perry (DCC ’04 & ’06-08) will be releasing her first album any day now!  Check out this Youtube video of her singing a song that she wrote.  Beautiful Erica! 

Melissa Rycroft Strickland (DCC ’06-08)  will co-host Bachelor Pad, premiering August 9th on ABC.  It will reunite contestants from The Bachelor and The Bachelorette to live together and compete for $250,000.

Kitty Chapman Carter (DCC ’74-76) celebrated 30 years of dance with a show, a complete surprise to her, put on by her former students.  At final count there were over 80 company dancers that came to the performance and 70 some odd that actually performed. That's not including her regular students from the past that just took classes once a week. Nick Florez, her student that started with Brittany Spears and continued on with Janet, Beyonce and Kesha, spearheaded the whole project.  He recreated Kitty’s most memorable and high scoring numbers with the original dancers doing it all plus their daughters that are dancing with her now.  Nick also put together a video of Kitty’s dance life with live congrats including current DCC.   Congratulations Miss Kitty and here’s to 30 more!

Jennifer Jones Cloutier (DCC ’92-94) is the Director of the UNT Dancers.  Not only did she celebrate 20 years as the Director this past season, her squad just recently won the Division 1-A category at the 2010 American Collegiate Championship for the first time!  Way to go Jennifer and 3 cheers to your girls! 

Dara McFarlane (DCC ’07-09) just completed her rookie season with LA Lakers basketball team by winning a  National Title! 

Amy Merriman Phelan (DCC ’91-94) climbed Mount Kilamanjaro!   Between May 30 and June 9, she and her group took the Western Approach/Lemosho route.  It is one of the best routes for acclimatization and is less traveled compared to the other 6 main routes. Along this route, trekkers get to camp alongside Lava Tower, a large rock formation to the southeast of the summit and scramble up the Barranco Wall, which is an 800 ft. climb between the Barranco and Karanga valleys.  Mt Kilimanjaro is 19,340 ft above sea level, with its highest point at Uhuru Peak. Kilimanjaro is the largest free-standing mountain in the world and largest mountain in Africa. It is also one of the largest volcanoes on Earth.  Way to go Amy- what will you do next?

Jennifer Nix (DCC ’06-08) has moved to the Magic Kingdom!   She is friends with Mary Poppins and is a finale dancer in Disney's electric light parade and a dancer in Hollywood studios block party bash. 

Vicki Foster (DCC ’84-87) was recently selected as one of the Top 10 Realtors in Dallas by Dallas Modern Luxury Magazine.

Jill Vandygriff Tidwell (DCC ’96-98) just moved with her family to Okinawa, Japan!  She is keeping a blog of her adventure- I will include excerpts so we can keep up with her.  Jill has 2 small children- what an experience for all!