Dancers' Elite dance recital is at 7 p.m., Saturday, (doors open at 6 p.m.) and 2 p.m. Sunday, (doors open at 1 p.m.) at the Bluffton middle school. Tickets are $7 at the door.

Deb Garlock can’t get off the dance floor. That’s because she took her own advice and followed her dancing dreams.

For the 35th dance season, young dancers, directed by Garlock’s Dancers’ Elite Studio, will close their year’s classes with a “Follow Your Dreams” dance program this weekend.

Garlock, a Bluffton High School graduate, has instructed dance for 40 years. The first five were with Linda Lee Dance Studio and the next 35 were through her own studio. She graduated from Dance Educators of America College in New York City, where she holds a bachelor’s of arts degree. She’s danced since she was 4, starting at Tony’s School of Dance.

This year’s weekend performance includes something very special. A dozen former dance students, who now have children taking lessons with Garlock, will join their daughters in a performance of “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.”

“Their dance closes the first half of the show,” she said. “The dancers will go into the audience in a Congo line. It should really be a great performance.”

Over the years Garlock’s studio has attracted dancers from across northwestern Ohio with students from Mt. Blanchard, Grand Rapids, Van Wert, Lima, Ada, Mt. Cory, Rawson, Ottawa and Columbus Grove, as examples.

Garlock laughs when asked about her most famous dancer. “That’s Zac Dysert from Ada, who is now with the Denver Broncos,” she says. “He was a tumbling student when he was 5. I tell that to all the boys who are my students.”

The dance class season starts in September and goes through early June. This year’s students range in ages from 2 ½ to sophomores in high school. In 35 dance seasons Garlock has no idea how many students she has taught.

“I tried to count, but lost track. I’ve taught thousands of students,” she said.

Her classes cover everything from ballet to tap, tumbling, jazz and hip-hop. In addition to classes Monday through Thursday in her studio at home, she teaches dance at three childcare centers in Bluffton, Lima and Findlay.

This year’s recital t-shirt has the names of all the dancers who have taken lessons all the way to their senior high school year. The list is long, as each of those dancers, too, took their teacher’s advice and followed their own dreams.

Below is the front and back of this year's recital t-shirt. The back side lists all dancers in the 2015 recital. The front lists her senior grads.