In October 1990, Stacey Willms was seven months pregnant and was teaching at Elm Grove Elementary in Kingwood. She told her husband Jeff that she wanted to start giving dance lessons - just about one to two hours a week. So she contacted a karate school and rented space at $20 per hour for two hours a week.

       With that start, Stacey’s Dance Studio opened with 15 students - most of whom were Stacey’s elementary school students. Word spread and seven months later, Stacey had about 50 students. So she took the next leap of faith and quit her school job to offer more classes. For the first four years, Stacey shared a lease with the karate school. It wasn’t until her first child started school that Stacey knew she needed some help.

      Stacey prayed for nearly seven months wanting to do the right thing for her family first, then the studio. She found Tonya Thompson like a “needle in a haystack”. At the time, Tonya was an instructor at the Las Vegas High School of Performing Arts. Tonya wanted to move back home to Houston; Stacey need someone to help with the studio class load. Tonya wanted to be closer to her family; Tonya gave Stacey more time at home with her young family (she now had three children). It was a match made in heaven.

    The studio grew by leaps and bounds. Step by step, Stacey added space to the “shopping center space” the studio occupied. Next, Stacey added another full-time instructor to the staff - Amanda Everett. Amanda was one of Stacey’s first students. She grew up in the studio, was an assistant teacher all through high school and was mentored by Stacey and Tonya. She emerged as a gifted instructor and one that holds her students in the palm of her hand.

     Stacey’s began to run out of room and began turning students away. It was time for more prayer. One morning in October 2003, Stacey prayed that “if” she was supposed to do something more with the studio that she needed “bells and whistles” to go off as dance instruction had always been just a “hobby” for her. Not more than four hours after that prayer, a pipe broke inside the studio wall and flooded the studio with about four inches of water. The plumber told Stacey that the pipe had been leaking in the wall for at least a year, but it just decided to burst that day! Stacey took that as a sign to find a new studio.