Beyer High Winter Formal a dance to remember

On a dance floor filled with shuffling clumps of self-conscious teenagers, they were easy to spot. They were the ones having fun.

Three girls, two boys – 10 arms waving, one girl twirling, two suits in constant motion and five laughing faces, grinning ear to ear. The small crowd of merrymakers arrived in one van with Beyer High School junior Katarina Argandar, joining about 250 other Beyer Patriots at the school’s Winter Formal on Saturday night.

“I just wanted to get them more involved,” said Argandar, referring to the friends she met volunteering with the PALS club, helping out in a special education class.

“It’s exciting for them to get to go to a dance,” she said. Other teens, she added, “get to enjoy it with us.”

At home before the dance, date Porter Scoffield kept his nerves in check, giving Argandar a wrist corsage and striking their “signature pose” for dozens of pictures – arms crossed, shoulders angled in, smiles wide.

Scoffield, a freshman on the Beyer wrestling team, wore formal attire, complete with tie and matching handkerchief in his breast pocket. Argandar wore a dress borrowed from a friend with a multilayer short skirt, neon pink waist and sequined strapless bodice.

“I decided I want to wear bright colors so we will stand out,” Argandar said with trademark forthrightness. She plans on a career as a special education teacher, after a stint in the U.S. Air Force to pay for college.

Saturday night, her mother showed up at the Scoffield house to take pictures. “I think it’s great,” said Kathleen Argandar. “She’s got a really big heart.”

She clicked away alongside Porter’s mom, Tammy Scoffield, and sister, McKenzie Scoffield, 19, who flew home from Brigham Young University to help chaperone her little brother’s first dance.

Next it was off to Alyssa Ybarra’s house for a home-cooked dinner on fine china at the formal dining table with Zeke DuBose and Elisa Barajas, all three sophomores, all friends from Beyer High special ed classes.

Talk was on favorite songs they hoped to hear at the dance and an a capella chorus of“Let it Go” from the movie “Frozen,” as mothers urged them to eat up and tucked napkins over fancy clothes.

This would be Ybarra’s first dance, too. But DuBose and Barajas, friends since kindergarten, danced the night away at last year’s Winter Formal.

Another round of hugs, goodbyes and last-minute jokes – “no twerking!” – and it was off to the The Seasons, $30 tickets and student IDs in hand.

Walking through the star-shaped dance floor entry, four sets of wide eyes crinkled at the corners.

The beat. The lights. The DJ … Time to dance.

This story was originally published January 25, 2015 at 5:29 PM with the headline "Beyer High Winter Formal a dance to remember."