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Ben Rice, vice president and commercial banking officer at Lake City Bank, and Hayley Horlick, special education paraprofessional at Claypool Elementary School, danced their way to winning the 2026 Dancing with the Stars for Charity Saturday evening.
Their win gave an extra portion of the night’s proceeds to Big Brothers Big Sisters.
Saturday night, eight teams took to the stage, each representing a local charity, said Kris Lake, producer and host.
Rehearsals started about five months ago.
“And to remember, for many of the people that you will see on stage tonight, outside of our student choreographers, this is something that they just do not do. In fact, some of them have never even danced before in their lives, let alone in front of a crowd this night,” Lake told the audience.
Bri Stewart, dance instructor at Warsaw Community High School, talked about the dance students who acted as choreographers for the teams. She said it was one thing to learn choreography, but it’s another to create choreography as a student. So Dancing with the Stars for Charity really amplified their performance skills.
Each team performed two routines.
Lake explained there was a theme for half of the competition. At the first rehearsal, each team randomly selected a decade and had to choose a song from that decade.
So half of the dances seen Saturday night involved “taking you on a musical and dancing journey through the decades that will rewind actually all the way back to the 1950s. Then, the other half of the dances tonight will be the team’s other routines, completely freestyle, not tied to any theme and very open to interpretation,” Lake said.
Lake also thanked the sponsors for Saturday’s event, which included Warsaw Community Schools, Warsaw Performing Arts Center, Kensington Digital Media, Male Fashions and Subway.
He then explained how scores would be generated.
Audience members could cast one vote per team per mobile device. All votes were done by text message.
Scores would combine with scores from judges to help determine the final vote. Judges were last year’s winners Griffin Heckaman and Karris Nissley and one of their choreographers Malori McDaniels.
“But we’ve also got one more brand new twist to this year’s judging,” he said. In addition to the panel of judges and the audience votes, there was a secret judge in the audience.
Audience votes counted for 50% of the total scores, while the panel of judges would make up 30% and the secret judge would be 20% of the total score.
Rice and Horlick received three 10s from the panel of judges for their first dance and two 10s and a 9 for their second.
After winning, Rice said, “It’s been five months of really hard work that I wasn’t expecting. I mean, I figured you know, it’s a dancing competition, like a local thing. But the choreographers took it very seriously and (it was) so challenging. The (dance) program here at the school, I wasn’t familiar with it. And now that I am, it’s beyond belief the amount of work that the girls put in. And so it’s been a blast.”
Horlick said she was incredibly speechless. “It’s a really great honor. The audience was amazing. We really tried our best to match the energy level and they gave a great, great love and support for us.”
Rice said he didn’t know if it was the songs chosen or if it was the energy he and Horlick had on stage that helped them win. He said they tried to bring a bunch of energy the entire time they were on stage since people paid to be there and they wanted to reward that by giving the audience a show.
Horlick said they really dedicated to practicing and not just in the studio at the school, but also at home. She also thought she and Rice were a good dancing duo.
Horlick said it was an incredible honor to represent Big Brothers Big Sisters, and it was an organization that was near and dear to both her and Rice.
Rice said BBBS was a good program.
Horlick said she’s worked with people who have volunteered with BBBS “and we just think it’s an amazing program to help nuture and grow the lives of the youth in our community.”
The charities that were danced for Saturday were Heartline Pregnancy Center, BBBS, Legacy of Blessings Adoption Foundation, Bowling Against Bullying, Lost Sparrows, Pavilion Help Center, Baker Youth Club and Sleep in Heavenly Peace.
Prior to the presentation of the awards, all the student choreographers were recognized with a trophy and roses. This year’s choreographers were Ella Gonzalez, Shannon Smith, Alexis Cocran, Amber Whitaker, Kayanna Secrist, Natalee Stetzel, Kaylee Baker, Alayna Miller, Chloe Kim, Scarlett Walters, Dakota Gardner, Bella Boley, Laicey Snider, Kenna Miller and Lexi Reece.
The team placing third was Glenn Hall and Courtney Walters. Hall is a retired healthcare business professionaland currently serves as Pierceton Town Council president, chairman of the board for Grace Village Retirement Community and pastor of Harvest Community Church. Walters is a special educator for ninth through 12th grades at Warsaw Community Schools.
Shaun Mudd and Kelly Bradley came in second. Mudd is from the Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Office and a school resource officer for Tippecanoe Valley Community Schools. Bradley is an officer with the Warsaw Police Department and a SRO with WCS.
Winner of the Lee Anne Stewart Above and Beyond Award was Snyder.
