At the age of seven, Lora Jane Hyden knew she wanted to be a dancer. That’s when she got to take her first and only year of dance classes as a child, growing up in Eastern Kentucky. The single year of classes (singular thanks to the unpredictable coal mining industry from which her parents drew their income) was enough to inspire a young and intensely artistic Lora Jane to seek out dancing everywhere. Still, there was another force in Lora Jane’s life that would weigh in on her future—her father—who worked as a miner and also as a repairman for some of the heavy coal mining machinery. Rather than dance, he encouraged Lora Jane to follow a path that would secure her financial future. Lora Jane was torn. “I just couldn’t let it go,” she remembers. “For Christmas one year, I begged my parents to buy me a year of dance classes instead of buying me something else. Dad always said I was chasing after foolish dreams.” Yet Lora Jane didn’t let the lack of opportunities to dance prevent her from keeping her body in peak physical condition. She swam competitively for seven years, building a strong lean body, one not unfamiliar to the dance world, and she stayed active in other school sports, but, Lora Jane says “all the athletics coming and going wasn’t fulfilling that creative outlet for me.”

Soon the time came for Lora Jane to begin her academic career, and once again she felt compelled by both her own dreams and the hopes and dreams her family held for her. After dabbling at the local community college and at Morehead State University, Lora Jane enrolled in classes at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, far away from her family who lived on the eastern edge of the state. She had made a decision to follow the one dream that had always haunted her. For the first time since she was seven, Lora Jane began taking dance classes, and finally found her creative outlet.

Lora Jane had a lot of lost years to make up for when she began dancing as an adult at WKU. “It was very hard because I had to play catch up. All the other students at Western had danced all their lives or most of their lives. I danced when I was seven, for one year,” she recalls. But with hard work and dedication, Lora Jane not only caught up, but excelled, choreographing her own pieces at the university and performing in the Bowling Green Capitol Arts Building. Just as she was finishing up her baccalaureate degree (with a concentration in dance), Lora Jane was offered a position with a dance troupe in Panama City, Florida. But instead of heading toward the beach, Lora Jane decided to take her skills back home to Paintsville, Kentucky, where, she knew from experience, there were very few options for young people interested in dance.

Upon returning to her hometown, Lora Jane taught at Pikeville Community College while she began formulating plans to open a dance studio of her own. By September of the same year she’d graduated from WKU, she opened Pointe of JOY in the Paintsville’s recreation center. It had concrete floors and no mirrors, except, Lora Jane notes with a smile, at night, when some of the windows would function as makeshift mirrors once the sun had gone down. After moving to another location for a year to continue building up the business, Lora Jane applied for and acquired a business loan from the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development (MACED) in order to purchase a beautiful downtown Paintsville building into which she could move Pointe of JOY.

MACED, a community development organization that focuses its efforts in the 51 Appalachian counties of Kentucky, partners with people to generate meaningful economic alternatives that strengthen local economies, create opportunities for low-income people and sustain the region’s natural resources. MACED seeks to help businesses committed to building sustainable and vibrant local economies to prosper. The organization works with viable businesses in Appalachian Kentucky that may have trouble finding bank financing, but are contributing to the employment and economic opportunities in the region. For Lora Jane, that meant the opportunity to acquire her small business loan from MACED, a loan she may not have received from a national lender uninterested in assisting distressed communities and their entrepreneurs. MACED’s initiatives in this region go well beyond financial assistance for small businesses, but for Lora Jane, their financial and technical assistance was all she needed to hit the ground running.

Taking out the loan with MACED was no small matter, however, as Lora Jane needed a co-signer. Her parents agreed to co-sign on the loan, but she notes, “That was a very big deal.” By signing on her loan, Lora Jane’s parents were risking everything. “They put it all on my shoulders,” she says a bit anxiously. That responsibility was a lot of stress for this young businesswoman, just barely in her mid-twenties, who initially wasn’t even sure if she wanted to stay in her hometown. But when Lora Jane, with Pointe of JOY, had her first local performance, it became clear to both her and her parents that they had made an important investment. That performance was in Paintsville’s finest hotel, the Ramada Inn, and over 200 people were in the audience. “Up until that point,” Lora Jane reflects, “my dad thought I was still chasing my dreams. But then he saw the show.” Laura Jane recalls the audience’s reaction when she went up en pointe (ballet dancing on the tips of the toes): “The whole place just hushed because they don’t see people dancing en pointe here or even hear about it. And once I finished performing, I looked up and my dad had a dozen roses and was coming at me. Finally, my dad believed in me!”

Business has been booming ever since. Lora Jane had over 100 clients by summer of 2006, and offered more than 20 different classes that spring alone. Those classes included ballet, jazz, ballroom dancing, yoga, Pilates, and acting, to name just a few, with options for different age groups and ability levels. Beth Slone, a 17-year-old dancer in Lora Jane’s pointe class is thrilled by the opportunity to come to Pointe of JOY over other, larger classes offered in the region. She says, “I’ve learned so much more here. Lora Jane is just phenomenal. When I danced in Prestonsburg, with 20 to 30 girls in the class, I just danced. There wasn’t the technical training,” Now Beth is in a class of three and receives the kind of personal attention she believes will allow her to pursue her own goals in dance, which, like Lora Jane’s, involve providing quality dance opportunities in an area like Paintsville where they are needed the most.

“Point of JOY prides itself on the personal attention students get,” Lora Jane says. “That’s where we get most of our transfer students.” Class size at Point of JOY ranges from three to just under 20, and classes are also distinguished by their instructor’s interest in providing theory-based textbook training within the classes. “Even the four-year-olds take notes in class,” Lora Jane says of her teaching style. “I feel that you have to have the intellect to back up the talent.” And that kind of interest in her dancers is indicative of her overall business philosophy. Her mission is simple with Pointe of JOY—to help nurture strong, positive members of the community and provide the kind of artistic and creative outlet she struggled to find for many years. “I try to not to just teach them ballet,” Lora Jane says, “I try to teach them something about life and character.”

Lora Jane travels 40 minutes away to Inez, Kentucky, to teach in that community as well. They had a show in June of 2006 that had over 92 performers in it. Lora Jane is proud of this savvy business move, since not only did it boost her total clientele by nearly 50 percent, it was also one more opportunity to bring dance to a community in need. Formal dance training wasn’t available in Inez. “They could get the booty-shaking stuff, but the real technique, they didn’t get,” she says laughing. And that energetic laughter seems to be the key for her. Despite all of the hard work and endless dedication, and not just a little pressure involved in starting up her own business in her hometown, Lora Jane has found her niche. She evidently knew this when she named the business, as it truly is a source of inspiration and joy for her dancers, audience members and for the greater Paintsville community as well.

Written by Aubrey Videtto, Photography by Chad Stevens