Wiscasset Parks and Recreation

Families turn out for Wiscasset tradition

Sat, 02/10/2018 - 8:45am

Picking out cupcakes with daughter Katie, 3, at Wiscasset Parks and Recreation’s annual father-daughter dance Friday night, Rob Hill said the night was additionally special due to his ongoing fight with colon cancer. He wants to enjoy all his time with his children as the treatment he began in October continues.

The chemotherapy has been going so well, he may be able to have an operation first believed to not be possible. He, wife Nicole, Katie, her sister Emma, 6, and their brother Gabriel, 7, moved from Pennsylvania to Maine to be with Nicole’s relatives. That’s been a good thing, including the quality of medical treatment he has received here, he said.

The dance, a longtime tradition at Wiscasset Community Center, drew first-timers and families who come every year. Phoebe Middleton, 11, of Randolph, sitting having punch with father Dan Middleton, figured it was their fifth year attending.

Richard Mank and daughter Brittany, 5, were back. She was so excited about going, she wanted him to call the center and ask if the dance could be held that day instead of that night, he said, smiling.

The dance was the first father-daughter one for Wiscasset twins Addyson and Kamryn Petrie, 2, the prize-winning cats at WCC last Halloween. Friday night, they were in matching, light pink dresses. Mother Julie, with husband Matt, the twins’ father, said they would have come to last year’s dance but the twins were a little young for it. This year’s was the beginning of a tradition, she said as their daughters walked around eating cookies from plates they were holding.

Morganne Phelps, 7, of Edgccomb saw a flier and asked to come, her mother Michelle Phelps said after adjusting some bobby pins to help hold up the bun in her daughter’s hair.

“She’s super-excited,” said Phelps, with husband Dan Phelps, Morgan’s father. “I think it’s a great opportunity for fathers to come here with their kids,” she added about the event.

Asked how she picked out her beautiful floral dress, Wiscasset’s Sully McKarns, 5, in line with father Lyle McKarns, said: “"We got it off Amazon.”