Cripple Creek circa 1985
In 1982, a dream of teaching children to dance came together and found a home on the corner in downtown Burgaw, NC. Lewis “Buck” Aycock, with great foresight, began to renovate an old car dealership building and made a place for the dance classes that his wife Nancy had started during the time they had worked and lived just down the road at Camp Kirkwood in Watha, NC. What began as a neighborhood gathering of kids to take dance classes continues today with all ages of dancers participating in many types of dance including ballet, tap, hip-hop, and clogging. It is the home of the well known Cripple Creek Cloggers, a team which began with twenty young dancers more than twenty five years ago and still performs today and has grown to over forty young people, some of which are children of the original clogging group. Buck and Nancy tried to offer the community a center for whole families to come and enjoy dancing. After Buck passed away in January of 1991, the dream continued. Nancy and their sons, Bruce and Jason, along with several other very capable young teachers still provide a community center of family fun for Pender County and the surrounding communities.
Did you know?
Cripple Creek is the name of an old bluegrass song. When the clogging team first started some of the adult members also began an amateur bluegrass band who could only play a few tunes, Cripple Creek being one of them. Because the adult group helped with the renovation of the studio “Cripple Creek” Corner stands as a tribute to the original clogging team.