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03/30/2008

FROM STAFF REPORTS

Dare to be different would be a fitting motto for deputy Scott Cyrway of the Kennebec County Sheriff's Office in Augusta.

With 20 years of law enforcement under his belt, Cyrway does regular patrols and also works with Drug Abuse Resistance Education or D.A.R.E.

To help bring D.A.R.E.'s drug-free message to school kids, he plays the guitar and sings with the band, D.A.R.E.X2, teaming up with Loren Fields, band director at Lawrence High School in Fairfield.

"We perform and get the kids dancing -- disco, line dancing and electric slide. We've been doing it since 1994," Cyrway said.

But, there's even more to his musical repertoire.

"I like to dance," he said.

For about eight years, he and his daughter, Kimberly Cyrway, 21, have been taking jazz and tap dance classes at Laurie's School of Dance in Winslow.

"We all joke about it," deputy Cyrway said, referring to the occasional ribbing he gets at the sheriff's office regarding his private dance-school lessons.

"You have to let it run off you," he said, with humor. "I'm being a good parent. It's keeping me in shape. I don't look at it as a girlie thing to do."

The dance school, one of the largest in the area, is owned and operated by Laurie Levasseur of Winslow, known to her students as "Miss Laurie."

"She teaches me directly. She'll make sure it's right.. . . She puts her heart and soul into it," Cyrway said of his dance instruction.

25th anniversary

The dance studio is celebrating its 25th anniversary and has a lot to celebrate. Since it opened in 1983, Miss Laurie has taught 1,371 students. Her long-time efforts have resulted in a positive cultural experience for the area. This year, 257 students are enrolled, including parent-student duos like Cyrway and his daughter, who create an intergenerational ripple effect in the school's history.

For the recital, the father-daughter team will be doing several '50's numbers, including "The Twist," and "Nasty Boy," with about 10 other adult dance students.

"She'll be wearing a poodle skirt; I'll be dressed in a black outfit," he said.

Cyrway, 53, first took up dance when his daughter, then about 13, brought home an announcement about the start-up of parents' dance classes at the school. She had been studying dance with "Miss Laurie" since the third grade. Currently, she is a junior at the University of Maine at Orono, with a major in sociology, criminal law and deviants, she said.

"My mother and I were ready to throw the paper away, because she doesn't dance," she said of her mom, Jill Cyrway, postmaster at the U.S. Postal Service Office in Canaan.

Instead, her dad surprised her and signed up.

"I laughed. He didn't look like the type who would take dance lessons. I thought he was kidding. I was a little embarrassed and also excited. I used to brag about it. Not many fathers take dance lessons, and here you've got a deputy taking lessons," she said.

"I do it mostly because my daughter is in it, and she wants me to do it. It makes her shine and gives her a lot of confidence. If I can do it, she can do it," he said.

Miss Laurie has done wonders for her and her dad, Kimberly Cyrway said.

"She is one of the greatest teachers I've ever had. It (dad's dancing) has improved drastically. When he first started out, it was good but shaky. He is amazing now."

Tap dancing is her dad's syncopated specialty.

"It takes many years to get our 'wings' in tap," she said, of an advanced tap-dance number executed while jumping in the air and created brushing sounds with the feet.

"I've been dancing for years, and I can barely get my wings. He got it the first time. . . . I'm kind of jealous," she said.

Lynn Ascrizzi -- 621-5731

lascrizzi@centralmaine.com

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