for Kentucky edition.

I'm Toby >> Thank Youto begins for more than 40 years.

The Owensboro dance food or has shared performance art with hundreds of thousands of people in the region.

But it all started with a girl named Joy who love to dance and still does Owensboro native our Kelsey, Starks of Inside Louisville, a news quiz fame takes us inside the Owensboro dance theater.

See it when Joy Johnson first moved to Owensboro from Indianapolis in the late 1970's.

>> She planned to continue her budding career as a dance teacher.

What she didn't plan was to create one of the most impactful nonprofit organizations and the region.

>> I had no idea.

That this would.

Be what it is.

No, I never would have thought it.

I was a dance teacher.

You know?

>> I teach than she expected around.

25 kids to show up for her dance classes in that first year of Johnson's dance studio.

100 signed up instead, then more joined the next year.

>> In 1982, the Owensboro Dance Theater was created.

The only nonprofit pre professional dance company with a studio in the region.

Today they perform 3 annual shows with staff in every school district reaching.

35 1000.

People every year.

And we've got to wear.

>> We're able to financially we we have guest artist, professional dancers come in.

We have 4 for not crack or and then our in concert.

We have 3.

And that gives them.

They can do that.

I can do that.

And I never would have thought were paying thousands of dollars to have professionals come in here.

Why she 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, to Kim Ramirez.

Johnson was in the very first company of the Owensboro dance theater in 1982.

>> And went on to dance professionally in Chicago and Colorado.

>> At a very young age, I had open-heart surgery my mom wanted a way for me to get stronger and healthier.

And so the doctor said putter and son.

So that's what she did.

And Evan Danson all my life, a half.

>> As many people here do can return to her Owensboro routes.

Now she teaches at Johnson's dance studio and serves as an outreach coordinator bringing much more than just dance classes to area schools as was front and center.

>> I do to into the schools.

And so what I do is that going to teach dance.

And then I'm a certified health coach and so we go in and I do health and wellness with dance.

And then we're also we get grant money to they bring in it.

It's called the Tower Garden and and garden that we grow and the kids it's got mass science.

To back it up so they can do less than plans.

We have lesson plans that help them grow.

And then we had danced to it.

So they get that variety of health and wellness and nutrition.

Just moving their bodies.

>> The Owensboro Dance Theater outreach program now serves over 65 area schools and community centers across 16 Kentucky counties.

All free of charge.

>> You know, it's a small town, but once road and Cedar and Johnson since he has so much to offer a mean, you know, in bad times of when I would go to different places to live or whatever you didn't have this community that you have here in Winnsboro.

>> Among the alumni gracing these walls, our professional dancers, teachers, radio City Rockettes.

And in fact, now every single teacher at Johnson, Stan Studio was once a student here.

>> There's a lot of people that they come here to raise children.

I think it's a small community.

And they back what they have.

And they always have from and they've been very good to the arts.

>> But there are thousands of other alumni who didn't go on to become professional dancers.

Are teachers, but the impact of finding dance discipline and confidence at a young age.

It's something that lasts forever like this reporter whose picture still hangs on these walls.

Just the people want.

>> No, and I would never of now.

And then like 8 kids that grew up.

And it's just like it does.

It makes me very proud.

And very humble, trying to be very humble about it.

You know, it's surprising me come back to the door.

You know, I love dance.

Obviously, but it's more about the people.

>> For Kentucky Edition on the road in Owensboro, I'm Kelsey Stop.

>> Thank you, Kelsey.

That's a