A short biography of KENNY FARRIS of Laurel, Maryland.
Kenny has been square dancing for 48 years and calling regularly for 41. He is club caller for two MAINSTREAM clubs, two PLUS clubs, and a daytime beginner/basic group. He is also a perennial guest caller at several others. Kenny also cues Phase II-IV rounds at most of these groups, as well as line dances on request. He teaches beginners at the Gerymanders. He has also been the guest caller for many clubs, festivals, and weekends throughout Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware, and New Jersey.
As a member of the National Capital Area Square Dance Leaders Association (NCASDALA), Kenny has served as Vice President, Membership Chairman, Class Level Chairman, and eight years as Editor of the association publication "Mike & Monitor." As a member of CALLERLAB (The International Association of Square Dance Callers), he has served on several panels, is past chairman of the MSQS Committee, contributed to the Standard Choreographic Applications Manuals, and is an active member of the MAINSTREAM and the PLUS committees. From 1997 through 2005 Kenny wrote a monthly column called Choreo Corner for Calls �n Cues, the square dance magazine for the Washington, DC metropolitan area.
Dancers enjoy not only Kenny's singing, but his choreographic creativity as well. He has authored several calls, including one (Box the Top) which received world-wide attention as a Callerlab Plus Quarterly Selection.
Kenny has been recognized in the American Square Dance magazine and featured in the Washingtonian magazine. He has also appeared on the Today Show with Willard Scott. In August 2006 he was the subject of a pictorial article in the Baltimore Examiner newspaper.
Kenny and Mary, his wife of 34 years, met square dancing. They have two grown children: Michael, 29, lives in Columbia, MD, and is an IT specialist for the Social Security Administration; Kristin, 26, lives in Washington,DC, works for the Environmental Protection Agency, and also attends grad school at Johns Hopkins University. Both also enjoy square dancing. Mary has a degree in Economics and recently retired from her job at a Special Education Center in Beltsville, MD. Kenny has a degree in Mathematics and is retired from the Congressional Budget Office of the United States Congress where he was an IT specialist for 28 years. He enjoys square and round dancing with his wife, working in the yard, home projects, bicycling, and hiking. He also likes reading, watching science-fiction and solving crosswords and Sudokus. Kenny and Mary are members of Our Savior Lutheran Church in Laurel, Maryland.
