Alexander Schweitzer is the grandson of Jim and Shirley Buckmaster and resides with them at their home in Waunakee, Wisconsin. At the age of 8, Alex saw a PBS special on young people who do ballroom dance. Alex was interested and asked his grandmother, “Can I do that?” which set things in motion.

After checking with several dance studios over a period of weeks, Shirley located a dance academy where the owner’s passion is teaching ballroom dance to children. Over the past four years Alex has worked with a variety of dance partners and has advanced to state championships.

Alexander and his current ballroom dance partner Harmony Kaegi (age 14) entered 10 separate events at the 28th Annual Wisconsin State Dancesport Championships held April 22-26 at the Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee. The youth portion of the championships are held on Sunday, making it a possibility for them to compete without conflicting with the Sabbath.

In their various events, they performed the Viennese waltz, tango, foxtrot, rhumba, samba, paso doble, cha cha, jive and the standard waltz. Alex and Harmony came away with four blue ribbons, four second place ribbons, a third place ribbon, and also with a win at the scholarship event where they were awarded championship gold medals and received a check for $75. Alexander is in 7th grade at Waunakee Middle School. Harmony is in 8th grade at Deforest Middle School. Alex and Harmony were introduced to each other because they both train under Tina at Fusion Dance Academy in Sun Prairie.

Jim Buckmaster