Today we’d like to introduce you to Amber Mays.
Hi Amber , thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
In March of 2024, my daughter, Stokley Morgan and myself, Amber Mays, founded Pike County Dance Academy. To me we are a dynamic mother-daughter duo. We have taught dance together since Stokley was in middle school, and have spent countless hours at recitals, dance competitions, and much more. It was just very natural for us to work together on a more professional level as Stokley grew older. While recovering from ACL reconstruction knee surgery obtained while teaching dance, I started thinking about all the people who had asked us to start a dance studio in Pike County, GA. Pike County had not had a dance studio in over 20 years, and many of our friends and family members knew that both Stokley and I had been teaching in a local Atlanta metro studio. The forced time off from teaching and dancing allowed me the time to plan and think about what we could bring to the Pike community. In a community where Friday night football games, long days at the baseball fields, and a true love of all things pirate and red, black and white (the schools’ mascot and colors), we decided to create a dance studio that embraced the pride of the community. Thus, Pike County Dance Academy LLC was born with the county name in the title and the red, black, and white colored theme to match. It was important for the us to include family and pride to match the sentiments of the community. PCDA quickly became a place of not only dancing, but a happy, healthy family unit. Now in our second season, PCDA has had over 200 dancers ages 1.5 years old to 70+ dance in the studio.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
No new business ever has a completely smooth road in the beginning. Our biggest obstacle was finding a perfect location. In a small rural farm community, where strip malls are frowned upon and keeping big business at a minimum is a goal, there is not a lot of large spaces open. I am also an owner of Mays Printing & Graphics with my husband. The decline of the print industry, along with some location concerns were forcing large changes to take place quickly in our business. My husband Brad and I were looking for a new place to locate the print shop. When we walked into 166 Industrial Dr. in Zebulon, we saw a perfectly divided building with an open lobby area that would allow the print shop to move, while opening a small dance studio. It was the best of both worlds. We immediately showed the building to Stokley, and the ball got moving quickly. The lease was signed in March of 2024 and by June camps and classes started in the 2-room studio. Now Stokley and I are currently looking at ways to change our 5-year plan to a 2-year plan to facilitate the quick growth of the dance studio. God has provided the teaching talent and the dancers, and now we have started looking at ways to add even more classes and future studio space to accommodate the quick growth. A blessing and a curse.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Stokley and I both started dancing as toddlers, as soon as we were potty trained (you know the studio staple rule). We both started assistant teaching at young ages at our respective dance studio. And we both took our love of dance all the way through adulthood and have taught a variety of classes from tumbling to hip hop and have created choreography for both recreational and competitive dance pieces. In creating PCDA it was very important to us to team up with local professional dancers, teachers, and choreographers that we had relationships with to bring strong technique, skills, and fun to the dancers of all ages in the Pike community from the studio’s inception. Just because it is a small community, doesn’t mean that we couldn’t have some of the best in the Atlanta dance industry to inspire and train our dancers. In our first year, we watched our dancers transformed quickly and helped the us to now embark into the competitive dance team world. In the 2025-206 PCDA we will have our very first competition team.
Another thing that was very important to us was to have our studio to be a “happy place” that acted as a safe haven for all those who entered. Growing up is hard so we wanted no drama in our studio; we made that very clear in our literature and even in our Code of Conduct. We also wanted dancers of all shapes and sizes, and all walks of life to enter those studio doors feeling loved and happy. Dance was going to be the conduit for strong minded and strong bodied dancers. Both Stokley and I had been in dance most of our lives and we’re also competition kids so remember some of the things we wanted or needed while growing up in the dance world. Setting up our studio in a strong, healthy environment was important to us.
Some back story on me is that my husband Brad Mays and I have been the owners of Mays Printing and Graphics LLC since 2017. My first job was working at a print shop where my mother worked, so transitioning into the print world was natural. Even so, I always maintained my love of dance. I raised two dancers, Donte & Stokley, have taught classes since I was a teenager, and I performed competitively including Nationals on ESPN for Universal Dance Association’s National Championship on both high school and collegiate level. Dance has always been in the equation. One of my fondest dance memories was performing as a Classy Cat for Kansas State University, but my pride and joy has been raising our four children, Brantly, Ethan, Donte & Stokley.
Stokley is a professional dancer in the Atlanta area, who grew up competing in the Elite level of competition. She is a current member of BurlapSakk Professional Dance Company. She has danced in numerous professional shows in both the Atlanta and Los Angeles areas. After high school, she became a member of Profectus Professional Dance Company, while she remained a teacher at her home studio that she had been with since age 4. Though she truly enjoys performing on the stage to this day, Stokley found that she loved teaching dancers and seeing her imagination come to life on the stage through others. Two years ago, she married her former dance duet partner, Mitchell Morgan, and they continue to dance together in shows together.
Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
The biggest piece of advice is to remember that a dance studio is a business. You have to think about paying your bills, while making an income for yourself. We would love to take on every dancer possible, but in the end, you do have to think about how you are going to keep the lights on. We also suggest doing your research both industry wide and in your community. What works for a large Atlanta studio, most likely won’t work for a smaller studio, so stay true to yourself and to your clientele.
The other most important bit of advice is to keep your spiritual life alive and even more active than before. If you meditate, keep meditating, If you pray or study your Bible daily, keep doing it daily. Keep yourself mentally, physically, and spiritually healthy. Starting out new is going to take a toll on you mentally and physically. We are Christians and we felt that sharing our beliefs was important to staying true to ourselves. Our dance floors are built with scriptures written on the wood, our recitals begin with prayer, and if someone is hurt or sick in class we talk and pray about it with our students. We are genuine with our dance family and we believe that helps us to maintain who we truly are. You can’t forget that you are still a human, even if you are now a business owner. Don’t be fake and remember what you put out into the universe will be the type of people who surround you in your studio.
Pricing:
- Our tuition is based on how many hours per week a dancer takes. We put this information out on our website year long.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.pikecountydanceacademy.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pikecodanceacademy/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pikecountydanceacademy/
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@pikecodanceacademy
- Email: pikecountydance@gmail.com
Image Credits
Mitchell Morgan – Photographer mmorgan.art117@gmail.com
