{"id":10005,"date":"2023-07-14T14:27:43","date_gmt":"2023-07-14T18:27:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/?p=10005"},"modified":"2023-07-17T20:49:10","modified_gmt":"2023-07-18T00:49:10","slug":"raring-to-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/issues\/summer-2023-cat\/raring-to-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Raring to Go"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Dottie Cunningham \u201964 leads her Learn to Skate class at Boss Arena.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dottie Cunningham \u201964 shines when she\u2019s teaching\u2014in the classroom or on the ice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dottie Cunningham \u201964 can\u2019t stand still. We eat breakfast at T\u2019s Restaurant in Narragansett, R.I. I work at a slab of French toast; Dottie nibbles her spinach and eggs. But only 30 minutes prior, she was skating around in a fur coat and snow pants at äçÐÄvlogÃâ·ÑBÕ¾\u2019s Boss Arena. When I ask her if she\u2019s the kind of person who needs to be active, a small smile appears on her face and her eyes twinkle. She nods. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cunningham is busy, and always has been. She manages a summer vacation home in Jamestown with her sister (she tries to entice this reporter to bite for the upcoming season), teaches ice-skating to the over-50 crowd, is part of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at äçÐÄvlogÃâ·ÑBÕ¾, gives presentations on the Iditarod (one of her many passions), and still tutors students, even though she\u2019s long retired from her 29-plus year position teaching at Mercymount Country Day School in Cumberland, R.I. Just this past fall, she also twirled the baton with the Ramettes at Alumni & Family Weekend\u2014and her daughter only recently saw the video. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy kids have no idea what I\u2019m doing, so when they see me, they\u2019re like, \u2018Mom!?\u2019\u201d she says, laughing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But skating is where she really shines. Cunningham is a natural on the ice (she ran her own skating school in Franklin, Mass., for years), and each spring, she teaches an eight-week-long OLLI class for 50-and-older skaters, twice a week. \u201cMy motto in skating\u2014well, in everything\u2014I want my students to know more and to appreciate the efforts of others,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beth Leconte, executive director of OLLI, says of Cunningham, \u201cHer enthusiasm and style are contagious, and she encourages everyone to have fun and enjoy life\u2014no matter what your age.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A group of skaters piles onto the ice at Boss Arena just after 9 a.m., laughing, knees wobbling slightly, and Cunningham floats around\u2014a tuft of her pink, cashmere sweater peeking out from her fur coat, framing her smile. She quips to her group, \u201cYou folks are about ready for a jump lesson,\u201d to which she\u2019s met with laughter broken up by shouts of, \u201cNo way!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, instead of jumps (much to the relief of her class), Cunningham plans to lead them through a routine set to \u201cRaindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head.\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s our tune,\u201d she explains. And though it is actually raining outside this Thursday morning, it\u2019s very hard to dampen Cunningham\u2019s enthusiasm. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two of Cunningham’s best friends from Park View Middle School in Cranston, R.I.\u2014Janet Wilson and Marcia Gladue\u2014stand near the penalty box, cracking jokes and watching, gleefully, as their longtime friend shines under the fluorescents. \u201cWe all turned 80 last year,\u201d says Cunningham. \u201cEighty and raring to go!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neither Wilson nor Gladue were serious skaters before her class, as far as Cunningham remembers. But throughout her years teaching\u2014whether her students were 7 or 70\u2014she\u2019s always believed that if you do the work (and have fun), you can achieve a great deal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou only get out of a thing what you put into it, and it doesn\u2019t matter if you go to a big-name school or whatever \u2026 you can still make it no matter what, but it depends on you,\u201d Cunningham says. \u201cThere is no \u2018can\u2019t,\u2019 and I believe that because I\u2019ve witnessed it so many times before.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

B.J. Thomas\u2019 voice comes over the speaker, sprinkling proverbial raindrops, and the class gathers and glides up and down the rink, finishing with a little spin, arms\u2014and smiles\u2014wide. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe just keep on truckin\u2019,\u201d says Cunningham, \u201cbecause it\u2019s fun.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014Grace Kelly<\/em> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dottie Cunningham \u201964 teaches learn-to-skate classes for the over-50 crowd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":10007,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[316],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-summer-2023-cat","architecture-close-up","architecture-network"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10005"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10279,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10005\/revisions\/10279"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}