By Elliott Nace | Assistant News Editor
The Barfield Drawing Room may not be a proper barroom, but its doors are swung wide open.
The Country Dance Club at Baylor, which has hosted events with upwards of 800 participants and boasts almost 250 members, meets every Wednesday from 9 to 10 p.m. in the Bill Daniel Student Center.
The club teaches beginners and veterans alike a variety of partner dances, aerial tricks and line dances, inviting students into Baylor’s appreciation for country culture while creating a community of its own.
Houston senior and Country Dance Club President Rylee Flynn said one of her favorite memories from the club came from a dance competition she attended her freshman year.
“Country Dance Club offered a dance competition where it was mostly just [for] participation, and I was the only female lead out of everybody who was competing, and I got third place,” Flynn said. “The president pulled me aside and told me that it was really impressive that I had the confidence to go out and still lead.”
Flynn said attending weekly meetings also led her to form friendships within the club.
“We’re not just coworkers,” Flynn said. “We’re friends, and we enjoy each other’s company.”
Plano sophomore Dylan Favre, a member of the Country Dance Club, said, “you can’t help but get acquainted” with people who return to dance week after week.
“My freshman year especially, I met a lot of great fellow leads, guys who were really interested, but also a lot of followers, girls, who I’d see Thursday night at Melody’s to go dance, so I’d always have a dance partner there,” Favre said.
The dancing does not stop when the club leaves the SUB. Favre said members regularly migrate to Melody Ranch on Robinson Drive Thursday nights.
“The officers have their own table at Melody’s,” Favre said. “They also lead dances at Melody, so they’ll be on stage.”
Houston senior and Vice President of the Country Dance Club Jacob Moore said the club also makes a special yearly trip to the Fort Worth Stockyards to dance at Billy Bob’s Texas, which labels itself as the “world’s largest honky-tonk.”
“Texas has such great country dance culture,” Moore said. “There [are] so many different places you can go to just dance and have a good time.”
Closer to home, the Country Dance Club performs at major university events such as Howdy at the Hurd and creates a float each year for Homecoming.
Moore said last year’s Homecoming, which included hauling hay bales and preparing the club’s float, culminated in a day that has stuck with him.
“We had so many members there and so many community members that [were] there just wearing our shirts and ready to go and dance all the way down Austin [Avenue], all the way through campus, and just have a great time,” Moore said. “They were soaked in sweat by the end of it. But all day we’re just sitting there making jokes, laughing, listening to music.”
Flynn also recalled last year’s Howdy at the Hurd, where the club taught country dancing onstage before headliner Ty Myers began his set. The club later filmed a music video while line dancing to Tucker Wetmore’s “Brunette” to accompany his performance at the Paul and Alejandra Foster Pavilion last October.
For Flynn, those experiences stem from a love of country music that began long before she joined the club. Calling herself “a cowgirl at heart,” Flynn said her first country anthem was “Ready to Run” by the Chicks, which stayed in constant rotation on her first iPod.
“Coming to Baylor reignited my love for country music because in high school I definitely listened to a lot more rock and roll … but the second that I got introduced to the Country Dance Club, it reopened my love for country music, and it’s been an incredible journey ever since,” Flynn said.
Flynn said that renewed love for country music eventually led her to country dance — a style that was completely foreign to her after growing up with ballet and tap.
“Any prior dancing that I [had] experience in is with a team or more solo, solo-wise,” Flynn said. “So, to get a chance to not only learn a new style but also multiple variations of partner dancing reignited that love.”
For Moore, country music and family tradition go hand in hand.
“My grandparents lived in a small town called Levelland, Texas, which is west of Lubbock, and I grew up going out there, surrounded by cowboys and two-stepping, boot-wearing ranch hands, [with] my granddad being one of them,” Moore said. “My parents are choir directors. My granddad was a musician … so music was a big part of my life, but so was the country culture, and I grew up listening and loving all of it.”
Between his grandfather’s records of Lefty Frizzell and the Carter Family, his mother’s country music from the 1970s and 1980s and his older brother’s love of modern country, Moore said generations of influences shaped his appreciation for the genre.
“I tell people my country music playlist is 150 hours long, and I know every single word of every single song on it, and I love every single one of [them],” Moore said.
Favre said country culture was similarly familiar by the time he arrived at Baylor.
“I grew up in the South,” Favre said. “My dad’s from Mississippi, and it’s a cultural icon. It’s part of the fabric of our very culture … you get to enjoy the soul of southern culture that isn’t necessarily as vibrant as it used to be, especially in big cities.”
Favre said country culture was similarly familiar by the time he arrived at Baylor.
“I didn’t think I’d be as good as I am today, and it gives me a lot of confidence in other areas of my life, like schoolwork,” Favre said. “I was like, ‘Oh, no matter how hard this test is, I can learn the material because I learned how to pick a girl up with one arm and not drop her, except for that one time.’”
Baylor students will have plenty of opportunities to put their country spirit to use in the coming weeks. Carter Faith will headline Howdy at the Hurd Friday at 8:30 p.m., followed by Pat Green at a postgame concert outside McLane Stadium Saturday. Braxton Keith will take the stage at the Foster Pavilion Oct. 2.
