Long-time Dance Drill Coaches Association of Oregon (DDCA) members Kristin Alacron, Kristen Myers-Coverstone and Danielle Schneider were recognized with the Service Award for their contributions to the DDCA.
The award, established in 1994, annually honors individuals who have contributed to the betterment of the organization by volunteering their time and talents to DDCA programs. Honorees have made significant contributions to improving and implementing the goals of the DDCA. The DDCA membership nominates people they deem worthy of this award and the recipients are selected by the DDCA Board of Directors.
Kristin Alacron
Within the span of a few weeks, Kristin Alacron moved our entire competition tabulation system to an exclusively virtual platform. She developed a completely new and improved system for the judges to input scores and an electronic process for coaches to receive their scores following competition events. Alacron has been a technical judge since 2010 and has served on the JA Leadership team as the Media and Tabulation Director since 2016.
A former Clackamas Cavalette, Alacron went on to dance on the University of Oregon’s hip-hop team and for the South Sound Nighthawks. She has coached cheer and dance teams in Oregon and Washington as well as taught dance at various local studios. She is also a member of the One More Time Around alumni dance team.
By day, Alacron is a high school theater teacher at Oregon Charter Academy and is a company member and regular performer in several local musical theater organizations.
Kristen Myers-Coverstone
Kristen Myers-Coverstone was instrumental in ensuring that local competitions would be a possibility for our teams this year. With this year’s unique set of challenges, she worked with the DDCA Board of Directors to create a new hybrid judging model that provided both in-person traveling judges and virtual judges.
With one of the largest judging pools that the DDCA has ever had, she managed the scheduling and logistical details to ensure that all teams would be judged in the format that fit their school’s needs and COVID-19 protocols.
A former Rex Putnam Royal Crown, Myers-Coverstone has stayed active in the dance community since graduation high school. During college she choreographed for local teams and interned to become a performance judge.
She has been a certified performance judge for 21 years. Myers-Coverstone has served on the DDCA Judges Affiliation Leadership Team for 18 years. She is currently the Commissioner and has previously served as the Internship Director and Education Director.
Danielle Schneider
Danielle Schneider is the current head coach of the Parkrose Elite, long-time dance performance judge, DDCA board member, and National Dance Coaches Association member and judge.
Schneider has been a coach in the DDCA since 2005, working with Liberty and David Douglas prior to coaching at Parkrose. She has served on the DDCA Board of Directors for eight years, including three years as the board chair. Schneider currently manages the DDCA website, is the dance contributor at OSAAtoday, and manages the DDCA’s social media platforms. She was responsible for creating the DDCA’s first-ever Giving Tuesday campaign to raise money for the DDCA scholarship fund.
Schneider has played many roles within the DDCA but one thing has never changed, her love for the sport. She has always strived to include student-athletes anyway she can, with a continued positive influence as a coach, judge, and to the membership. She strives for as many coaches and dancers to be involved as possible, and COVID would not stop that.
She teamed up with the coaches from David Douglas and Rex Putnam for in-person competitions during the 2021 season, travelled to many schools to provide in-person judging, created virtual events for dancers to participate in, and promoted dance team during COVID while also serving on the OSAA’s dance contingency committee.
Over Schneider’s many years of involvement within the DDCA, service and inclusion have been very important to her, and she has made many positive changes within our organization. She was also honored with DDCA Service Award in 2013.
Outside of the dance team world she enjoys time with her husband, Scott, and is an aunt to four nieces and nephews.
osaatoday@osaa.org
Subscribe
