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This summer, Miami Palmetto Senior High School rising senior Catherine Bales, spent seven weeks teaching little girls how to dance at the South Florida Ballet Dance Studio.
“I taught them ballet, tap and jazz,” she says. “It taught me a great deal of patience, but I love it and it taught me that I want to help them in the future.”
She also helped run the Fairy Tales Camp so she not only taught the girls to dance, she also worked with them on arts and crafts.
She hopes to continue to volunteer at her studio during the year, and keep on working with the children she taught this summer.
Bales has been dancing for 15 years.
“I started at two at my pre-school and I’ve never stopped,” she says.
She credits dance for helping her become organized and helping her keep up in school.
“When it was pre-COVID, we would have afternoon practice, my mom would drive to studio, I’d be there from 5 to 8,” she says. “Then come home and eat and do homework.
And then wake up at six and do it over again. There is dance even on Saturdays. Sundays was my homework day.”
She says it’s definitely worth the effort and she’d do it again and again and again. Bales not only dances for her dance studio, she is a member of the Palmetto dance team, Variations.
“I’ve been doing it since freshman year,” she says. “I’ve been dancing at this studio since I was four years old. I’ve always danced somewhere.”
She will be on the Variations team again for her senior year.
Bales expects to go back to school in-person in August. She plans to wear a mask to school because she believes the science says to wear a mask. Last year, she spent almost four months in quarantine because of exposure to classmates who had tested positive.
“It was not fun,” she says.
She also had surgery on her foot in November but was able to keep up with school because of online learning.
“It was an extra bone in my foot,” she says. “I couldn’t unpoint my toes. It was awful. The nickname is called the nutcracker injury. I thought it was funny as a dancer.”
She had the same surgery on her left foot in sixth grade.
At Palmetto Bales is on the Student Council Board as Chief of Staff.
“You’re basically in charge of the activities director’s calendar,” she says. “If she can’t go to a meeting, you go as representative. You have to keep track of the calendar and tell everyone else when it’s happening.”
She’s in the National Honor Society, the Social Science Honor Society and plans to join a History Bowl team.
A serious illness changed Bales’ life. Her experience made her realize she wants to be a doctor and she wants to model the care and concern she received from her doctor, Dr. P. Marcelo Laufer.
“I want to help kids who have a really long stay in the hospital and really hard recovery,” she says. “I want to help kids who have the worst experience in the hospital.”
She plans to apply to the University of Florida, not just because her dad’s a Gator, but because of Shand’s Teaching Hospital. Her list includes the University of South Florida, Florida State, the University of Central Florida and Boston University. Biology is her planned major.
This past spring, Bales received the Panther of Distinction Award.
“It means you embody Palmetto and you represent Palmetto which meant a lot to me.”
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
