EATON — Preble County Council on Aging (PCCOA) named sit 2018-2019 Prom King and Queen during the Senior Prom on Saturday, June 2. This year’s King is Tom Tyler and Queen is Bonnie Mowen-Cole. Both Tyler and Mowen-Cole will be featured in several Preble County parades throughout the year.
The night gave the seniors an opportunity to dress up, enjoy good food, company, and dancing. This year’s event was sponsored by Reid Health Alliance Medicare, in partnership with Health Alliance.
According to Stacey Fullmer, Senior Center Services Manager, Senior Prom is an annual function hosted and organized by PCCOA. It is a semi-formal event that allows attendees to dress up and have a night of fun.
This year’s event was thrown at a different time than usual. In past years, Senior Day and Senior Prom happened in the same month, but both events take awhile to plan, so this year Senior Prom was pushed back till June to allow for more planning and preparation time.
One of the first steps in planning Senior Prom is picking out a theme. This year’s theme was Black and Gold Masquerade.
They choose Prom King and Queen through the Participants Council and public votes.
“We let people vote for it. Whoever has the most votes, gets it. We do discuss it with our participants council to make sure everybody knows whats going on. We have more people involved. Our participants council consists of up to 12 people. We let them know who was voted for and how many votes they got. Anyone can vote, members, people who come to the Senior Center or events, and we put it in our news letter,” Fullmer said.
“[Mowen-Cole] is a former employee at the Senior Center. She was the Senior Center Manager there. One interesting thing, she got the line dancing started. [Tyler] is on our Participants Council and he volunteers. What happens with the King and Queen is they get to be in every parade that I can get them in.
“SVG Motors is helping us with that. They are providing us the with car, transportation, and driver for all the parades in Preble County. We appreciate them.”
Fullmer added, Senior Prom gives the attendees an opportunity to socialize and have fun.
“It is a way for them to get socialization, exercise, food — I mean, why not, when you’re getting all that? It helps stimulate them and keep them active. It lets them get dressed up a little bit, because maybe they don’t have as many occasions. Everyone pretty much loves this event,” she said.
The Silvertones performed during the dance and Fullmer’s planning team made it a success.
