The Texas Dip

All the recent furor over Texas cheerleaders and their lascivious behaviour reminded me of the Texas Dip and my failure to blog it. To wit:

The Texas dip is the bow debs make when they are individually introduced on stage with their escorts. The move requires hours of practice to master. Joy Burkhart, owner of Joy’s School of Dance, has been teaching the Texas dip to Hedonia debs for more than a decade. She calls the maneuver a doozy. “It’s not easy to extend both arms, cross one leg behind the other and do a deep bend all the way to the floor until your nose grazes the ground,” she said. Adding to the difficulty is the fact that the young women are wearing heavy ball gowns and high heels.

Sharron Cutbirth, a Hedonia debutante in the ’70s and the mother of two debs, said the Texas dip makes “quite a statement” on the international deb circuit. Her daughters both made their international debuts in New York City last year. “It’s amazing how spectacular the Texas debs are and how the crowd goes wild when the Texas debs are presented,” she said. “When Catherine and Caroline were presented, they came out in front of a Texas flag, a spotlight hit them and together, completely synchronized, they did the Texas dip, touched the ground with their noses and then turned toward each other. It was a moment in time. My mother even cried.”