Suffolk News-Herald

Fancy footwork has carried the members of the Peanut City Cloggers to competitions and exhibitions as far away as Michigan.

But the Peanut City Cloggers will bring its spirited, toe-tapping performance back home next weekend when it takes the stage at the 26th annual Suffolk Peanut Fest. The group of award-winning cloggers is slated to appear at 5 p.m. Oct. 11 on the Harvest Family Stage.

The local group of cloggers will be returning to the road later this month, with performances scheduled at the North Carolina State Fair in Raleigh and a national clogging competition in Maggie Valley, N.C.

The cloggers recently returned from first Foothills Clogging Challenge in Valdese, N.C., where they won several awards for their precision dancing. Members competed in traditional line dance, open freestyle, southern Appalachian, running set precision, and open precision dancing.

The Peanut City Cloggers swept up in awards, winning first place in all categories and being named grand champion for all five dances. The team also won the Spirit Award.

Winners at that competition include Joseph Quattlebaum and Emma Gardner, first place for their contemporary duet; Shamus Riley and Danielle Brice, first place in show duet; and Travis Fowler and Lindsay Skeen, second place in traditional duet.

Several dancers competed and won first place in the freestyle solo category in their age division, including Fowler, Quattlebaum, Riley, and Bill Denison. Second place went to Jacob Parr.

Riley also won the overall freestyle solo for the grand championship.

Fowler swept up several other first place awards, including the a capella solo, flatfoot solo, and the overall flatfoot solo.

Riley won third place in the A capella solo, and in the flatfoot. Second place went to Betsy Thomas and third place to Christina Byrd.

Fowler, an eighth-grader at Forest Glen Middle School, is the son of Sylvia and George Fowler of Suffolk. This summer, he brought home gold and bronze medals from the Junior Olympics held in Dearborn, Mich., where he took part in the national clogging competition.

The young man learned to unite the art of dance with the athletics of clogging from Riley, his instructor with the Peanut City Cloggers. He and Lindsay Skeen, a Norfolk clogger, qualified to compete after winning a Junior Olympics competition in Maggie Valley, N.C., earlier this year.