Jeanne Chwalick has been mentoring young twirlers in Palm Beach County for more than 50 years. Photos by Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star
Elliette Vancek, of Delray Beach keeps her eye on the baton during practice in the gym at St. Vincent Ferrer School.
By Emily J. Minor
Each Thursday, right after the afternoon bell, Jeanne Chwalik’s youngest proteges scramble into the gymnasium at St. Vincent Ferrer School in Delray Beach. They’re little, and sometimes not all that keen about paying attention this time of day.
After all, mastering the “around-the-world” baton trick can be almost as tiring as practicing your lower-case letters, especially when you’re 5.
Their mentors — older students Chwalik has worked with for years — are already in the gym, warming up, music going, getting ready to keep everyone in line.
Then in floats Miss Jeanne, adorable and smiling, the woman who for 50 years has kept everyone coming and going — to Nationals and Twirl Mania and even the Macy’s Holiday Parade in Orlando.
“It’s my creativity,” says Chwalik, 73, who began teaching twirling when she was 16. “I don’t paint. I don’t sing. I twirl.”
Baton twirling dates back centuries, although our predecessors used guns and knives and flames to show off their twirling skills. “Twirling requires a lot of agility,” Chwalik says.
But ever since Chwalik fell in love with twirling back in Niles, Ohio, she’s worked to pass on her passion to generations of youngsters, mostly female. When she first came to Florida in 1965, her twirling troupe was called the Delray Beach Debs, as in debutantes. Today, they perform as the South Florida Dynamics, a name they’ve held since 1998.
Chwalik and her performers are nationally recognized and have been to Australia, the Netherlands, Vancouver and, yes, even Jacksonville, to compete. They march in the Delray Beach Christmas parade. They make the trek to Orlando to march in the holiday parade at Universal.
And all that twirling, a lot of it in sync with the girl to your left and the girl to your right, takes practice — the younger kids on Thursday, the older ones the day before.
“I always say I don’t care whether we win or lose,” says Chwalik, smiling. “But I really do.”
With her firm schoolteacher voice, pretty face and understanding smile, Chwalik teaches the girls not just about their step-ball-changes, two-turn twirls and blind catches. She teaches them about team building and persistence, dedication and passion. She also knows how to laugh.
Lexi Craig was part of the Dynamics halftime performance during the FAU vs. University of Miami game in Boca Raton in September.
“Miss Jeanne is amazing,” says Erin Craig, a pharmacist at the family-owned Gulfstream Pharmacy in Briny Breezes, whose daughter, Lexi, now takes classes from Chwalik.
Parent Jennifer Vancek says her two young daughters, Reese, 8, and Elliette, 6, have fallen in love with twirling — just like their grandmother did when she herself was little. Vancek never took up baton twirling, but her mother did. “It definitely is a big part of their bonding, that’s for sure,” Vancek says about her mother and her two girls.
Lindsey Finkel, 23, Chwalik’s chief assistant and considered her top protege to direct the Dynamics when Chwalik retires, says she’s constantly running into people, just about everywhere, who once twirled under Chwalik. Finkel has been twirling since she was 3.
“I started at the civic center and they just kind of realized I had potential, so they moved me up,” Finkel says. “My friends, when they see me twirl, they have a new kind of respect. Everyone just always thinks of the majorette when you say twirling.”
Indeed, it was the quintessential 1950s majorette that got Chwalik interested in baton twirling, and thus changed the lives of so many schoolgirls.
Chwalik can remember being at home when she heard the local high school band marching down her street on the way to practice.
She looked out the window of their house on Wade Avenue in Niles, saw young women twirling batons, and fell in love.
“I just remember thinking, ‘Oh, I want to do that,’ ” she recalls.
So she has, for nearly 60 years now, bringing grace and confidence to her students in Palm Beach County.
Of course, with all those kids swinging all those batons, practice is rarely drama-free.
“We have ice on somebody just about every week,” Chwalik notes.
Because when you’re one of Miss Jeanne’s Dynamics, the show must go on.
Christy Abel, a student of Chwalik’s for 31 years, instructs a group of twirlers.
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