No prom? No problem. Harris County couple throws surprise dance for their daughter
For four months, the pink dress hung in her closet.
Each time she saw it, Harris County High School senior Reagan Thomas looked forward to the prom, scheduled for April 18 at Callaway Gardens.
She planned to go with a group of friends, dressed in their best and gathering with the rest.
Then the world changed.
Schools were closed in March as part of the stay-at-home restrictions to decrease the spread of the deadly coronavirus pandemic. Proms were among the casualties.
“I had it in my head that I was going to be able to go back to school and see my friends and have all these senior activities,” Reagan said. “I was upset and angry that I wasn’t able to go back to school.”
But thanks to a loving conspiracy hatched by her family, when that anticipated day finally arrived Saturday, she indeed wore that pink dress – and she danced with a suited guy in a matching pink tie.
In a phone interview with the Ledger-Enquirer, Reagan, her sister, Madeline, their mother, Kathi Yancey, a medical support assistant at Fort Benning, and their stepfather, Jeff Yancey, a test specialist at Global Payments, shared their story about this surprise prom.
Knowing how despondent Reagan was about the end of her senior year being canceled, Madeline approached Kathi a couple of weeks ago to start thinking about what they could do to lift her spirits.
Then they got Jeff to be in on the plan.
Saturday afternoon in their Fortson home, Madeline asked Reagan to be her model for a “prom hair and makeup” project. Madeline is a cosmetology student at Columbus Technical College.
Reagan wasn’t enthused but obliged.
Kathi snuck out of the house to get a takeout steak dinner for the family from Texas Roadhouse in Columbus. It took longer than they expected, so Madeline had to stall and take extra time primping Reagan.
When she returned, Kathi suggested Reagan might as well put on her prom dress for a few photos, considering her hair and makeup were done.
Reagan again wasn’t enthused but obliged.
“Let’s just make the best of it,” Kathi told her.
Reagan emerged from her room with her pink dress on and stood in front of the fireplace.
“She was just so beautiful,” Kathi said.
On cue, the music Kathi chose for the moment started playing on their home’s sound system, courtesy of Jeff’s hidden timing in the master bedroom. The chorus of the Kacey Musgraves country song “Rainbow” expressed this mother’s hopeful message to her disheartened daughter:
Well, the sky is finally open
The rain and wind stopped blowin’
But you’re stuck out in the same old storm again
You hold tight to your umbrella
Well, darlin’, I’m just tryin’ to tell ya
That there’s always been a rainbow hangin’ over your head.
Kathi didn’t know it then, but Reagan later told her she has cried countless tears listening to that song this spring.
“It made me sad but proud that, not that I know what she’s going through, but I’m trying to put myself in her shoes, and I’m trying to make her see the positive things,” Kathi said. “It’s been hard.”
Meanwhile, the surprise prom date appeared.
It was Jeff.
Clean shaven, wearing cologne and dressed in his best suit, Jeff also just so happened to have a pink tie that matched Reagan’s dress.
“It’s a very sad time for Reagan,” Jeff said. “… I wanted it to mean something for her, so I just wanted to do it up as best as I could.”
He gave her a daylily picked from the family’s garden and asked her to be his prom date. Choked with emotion, Reagan agreed, and they hugged.
Then, still in the living room, they danced until the song nearly concluded:
Yeah, there’s always been a rainbow hangin’ over your head
It’ll all be alright.
“I was crying the whole time,” Kathi said. “… To see my husband love my child as if it was his own biological child, he didn’t have to do that. He loves her as if she was his own. If I didn’t know that before, I saw it that evening. It was just very touching.”
In their candlelit dining room, which Kathi had set with their best china while Madeline got Reagan ready, the family feasted on steaks, mashed potatoes, salad and rolls. For dessert, Madeline treated Reagan to ice cream at Bruster’s in Columbus.
The surprise went as well as Kathi had imagined.
“It went perfect,” she said. “The moment she turned around and saw Jeff come out, I saw her happy. … I did it to make memories for her.”
Marvelous memories were made.
“I don’t think I’ll ever forget this,” Reagan said.
Along with the photos and video of the surprise prom, Reagan intends to save that pink dress.
And when she shows it to her future children or grandchildren, she would tell them, “My senior year was during this crazy pandemic, and this is how my family decided to celebrate my prom.”
Reagan added, “Knowing they were willing to go through all this, it just says that they love me. … The love I felt from them would be the same love I want to give to my future family.”
This story was originally published April 24, 2020 at 11:29 AM.
