30 Sep 2021 25 Years and still jazzed up!
By Donna Lampkin Stephens
Jazzercise of Conway is celebrating its 25th anniversary this fall, and the milestone takes Paige Revis’ breath away.“I still love it,” said Revis, 58, the mother of Jazzercise Conway. “I still get excited about it; I still want to think about it. That astounds me.
“I look back over the pictures of the current and former customers, and I think of the friendships that have grown out of it. These people would’ve never met without Jazzercise. People have come and gone, and we’ve done divorces, breast cancer, celebrations of children and everything you do in your life. And I’ve gotten to be a little snippet in all these women’s families, their lives.
“It’s such an honor.”
Revis grew up in Jonesboro and, after attending “all the colleges in Arkansas,” completed a degree in speech communications from the University of Arkansas-Little Rock.
“My dream was to find a job at a big company helping upper-level management understand and communicate with middle- and lower-management so they could help share their goals, and it would be a win-win,” she said.
“And it never happened.”
Or did it?
She has certainly helped thousands of women in the 501 achieve their fitness goals and much more.
According to jazzercise.com, it is “the original dance party workout and still the world’s leading dance fitness program.”
After several years with World Wide Travel, based in Little Rock, Revis made the leap to Jazzercize franchisee in Conway in 1996. She had taken one Jazzercise class in college.
“It was upstairs in a big empty room on Dickson Street, and there were 75 to 100 people in that class,” she remembered. “It was overwhelming. I loved it, but I didn’t go back.”
After having her first child, she rediscovered Jazzercise in Little Rock in 1990.
“It was in its own studio with just a few people, and they had child care,” she said. “I made my first mom friends and found a community of women. I just loved everything about it. I was a cheerleader in high school and loved to dance, so it just fit.”
She remembered that she didn’t have the discretionary income to pay monthly dues, so she traded a membership for babysitting services. From babysitter, she moved up to class manager.
“My body changed,” she said. “It was the workout I needed. I looked better than I’ve ever looked. I was strong and lean and then I got pregnant again.”
After her second son was born, she and her husband decided to move to Conway for the smaller-town atmosphere and to be closer to Greers Ferry Lake. But there were no Jazzercise options in Faulkner County, and she said she couldn’t justify driving back and forth to Little Rock.
Ultimately, she decided to do the franchise herself with a little help from her friends. She earned her certification on Sept. 13, 1996.
“My luckiest day ever,” she calls it.
Over the last 25 years, there have been several locations, including several years at the McGee Center.
“That’s when it really, really took off in Conway in late 2000 or early 2001,” she said. “I’d spent years answering this question: ‘What is Jazzercise?’ Then it was, ‘Where is Jazzercise?’”
In 2014, she sold her ownership to her associate Alison Williams but remained an associate. Williams moved the business to its current location, Townsend Center on Donaghey Avenue. When Williams took a kindergarten teaching position, Revis had a chance to retake ownership.
“But I decided businesses need to keep moving forward,” she said.
So Alicia Gough, one of those old Jazzercise friends who had worked with her as a class manager, became the owner. Now they effectively operate as co-owners.
“I told her I would rather be 1,000% supportive of her than 100% responsible,” Revis remembered. “We wanted to keep Jazzercise here. We know how important it is for the people who want it.”
Why Jazzercise?
“Jazzercise Inc. provides all of the choreography and the exercise,” Revis said. “The choreography is screened by a physiologist, so that sets us apart for safety and effectiveness. On the physical side, we are for everybody, all fitness levels participate in the same class, and we have lots of different formats, including strength-only, cardio and strength, kickboxing, core, and HIIT (high-intensity interval training).
“Jazzercise is so cutting-edge and current, and we always have been,” she observed. “It had its big appearance in the early ‘80s, so everybody thinks they know what it is. But it’s not what it was in the ‘80s.”
A quarter-century in, what does the future hold for Revis?
“As long as I can keep moving, I‘m going to keep moving,” she said. “And encourage others to do the same thing.”
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