Clovis dancers say pickleball cost them their dance floor and beloved instructor
Jim Ray’s 30-plus year career as a western dance instructor in Clovis came to an abrupt end last month.
Ray, 74, was a long-time employee at the Clovis Senior Activity Center, where he taught country-western dance until he retired at the end of August. .
Ray was widely beloved by the senior dancers for his cowboy attire, patience, and old-fashioned gentlemanly demeanor. He hosted couples’ balls on Friday nights, an annual “senior ball,” as well as line dance and ballroom-style dance classes throughout the week for beginners and advanced students.
Last month, Ray and his students say they lost their dance floor to pickleball, leading to Ray’s resignation.
“About two weeks ago, we came into the beautiful room with the beautiful floor, and there was blue painters’ tape all over the floor outlining a pickleball court,” Debbie Graeber, a student of Ray’s, told the Clovis City Council this week. “When you slide, when you dance, the tape stops your foot. It rolls up. It’s sticky. It’s leaving residue. It’s ruining the floor.”
About a dozen dancers taught by Ray showed up at the Clovis City Council meeting on Tuesday and petitioned to bring back their beloved instructor and his dance lessons.
Dancers told the council that the group went to the senior center’s management and had asked to remove the tape, but the request was denied. When dancers discussed addressing the City Council, management became hostile, they said.
Ray, who didn’t attend the council meeting, commented on his resignation in a Facebook post.
“The unprofessionalism, disrespect and overall lack of concern for the safety of my dancers, was too much. Not to mention they destroyed our dance floor by drawing on it with permanent markers and putting tape down that is not made for flooring,” Ray wrote last Monday.
Ray told The Bee on Friday that staff at the Clovis Community Center had replaced the blue tape with painted lines. He and other dancers plan to address the City Council again on Monday to ask for his reinstatement.
“I just want to teach dance and be back with my students,” Ray said.
Searching for a safe dance space
In a separate Facebook post, Ray said he is looking for a new place to teach dance. His classes typically enroll up to 50 dancers.
Ray is familiar with the challenge of searching for a safe teaching space.
When Ray started teaching at the original senior center at 850 4th St. three decades ago, his students held a fundraiser to put in a floating wooden dance floor in the main hall.
By the end of 2023, when the senior program relocated to the newly constructed senior center at 735 3rd St., Ray and his students found that the classroom floor was made of concrete, which increases the risk of joint, bone, and muscle injuries for elderly dancers.
Earlier this year, the group was finally permitted to return to its original venue.
“We, through a lot of pushing, were able to get back there,” Graeber told the City Council. “Everything was great, and his attendance started picking up a lot. We had a lot of people return who had quit. We have people come in daily just to see (Ray).”
Twyla Smith, a retiree who took the dance class for 20 years, said at the council meeting that the dance lessons are important to her.
“I never met anyone so patient, so kind. He’s a wonderful teacher, we’d be lost without him,” Smith said. “To me, these classes are my exercise, they’re my fun, they’re my friends.”
Dancing vs. pickleball
Officials told the dancers at Tuesday’s council meeting that the city is seeking a solution.
“Line dancing has been the heart and rhythm of our center for years, and we’re committed to keeping it going. Also, as pickleball grows in popularity, we are thrilled that we have an inside space, out of the heat, where our seniors can play,” the city said in a statement to The Bee.
Earlier this year, Clovis was criticized for its lack of public pickleball courts. Pickleball players told the council and city officials at several meetings in recent years that Clovis lagged Fresno in facilities to play the emerging sport of pickleball. As a result, Clovis introduced pickleball programs for older adults and youth starting this summer.
The pickleball sessions were held in the renamed Clovis Community Center at 850 4th St. inside the room with the dance floor, according to city spokesperson Chad McCollum.
Community organizations, such as The Well Community Church, also applied for a construction permit from the city to build pickleball courts in response to the sport’s popularity.
City officials say they found a short-term solution — painting lines on the Clovis Community Center floor to replace the painter’s tape — so both pickleball players and dancers can enjoy the space.
In the long term, the city is looking at ways to upgrade the flooring in the new senior center to improve the experience of dancers, according to Bethany Berube, the city’s deputy general services director.
Henry Wegermann, a student of Ray and a representative of the National Smooth Dancers’ Fresno chapter, hopes the floor will stay the same but said painting the lines might be a compromise solution.
“Pickleball is a fad. Ballroom (dance) has been around for a long time, and it’s not going to go away,” Wegermann said. “The dancers have utilized the hall for about 25 years, so it’s been a blessing for us, and we thank Jim Ray. He’s a wonderful man.”
