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The card arrived that day at the venue, not at home. It was from the Greater Topeka Partnership, a welcome addressed to Capitol Cotillion, delivered to the place where the program actually lives. It was not a form letter or a digital notification but something tangible, with a return address and a stamp, that had traveled to find us. Opening it in the ballroom before the families arrived was quite the feeling of wonder. Capitol Cotillion had a home in Topeka, and Topeka had

It is a fair and frequent question that deserves an answer. Here it is, as complete as I can make it in this forum. Some things cannot be understood by being told, you understand. You can read every description of what seawater tastes like and still not know until the wave hits your face: it fills every sense at once and reorganizes something in you that no amount of reading ever could. Well Capitol Cotillion is that kind of a thing. I will describe what happens, and it wi

There is a reason Ferris Bueller’s Day Off has never left us. Sloane is effortlessly cool, Ferris is legendary, and Cameron is a cautionary tale. When Ferris heads up the expedition to stop and look around lest they miss the good in life, Chez Quis makes the list of destinations. The full line-up is a baseball game, an art museum, a white tablecloth lunch with dignified adults, and an occasion to be among the good people of Chicago at large - to “Shake it Up, Baby Now” in

There is nothing quite like watching the lesson walk out the door on its own two feet. It was several boys on the same soccer team, bags over shoulders, cleats on, ready to head to practice straight from Cotillion. One of them held the door open for the others on the way out, this gentlemanly gesture we had just talked about in class. Most kids know to do it, but the spirit is in the confidence of the gesture and the heart posture of anticipating it. The youngster pictured

It started with the oldest, our first season. His brother followed soon after, the way it tends to go when something is working in a family. Then another signed up for Fancy Dance, the littles’ program, eager to find out for himself what had his big brothers coming home with as many laughs as helpful tips. It happens often at Cotillion schools, and we have had the phenomenon grace us at Capitol. It’s as if it’s baked into the experience, which has come as a surprise to me as

It used to be fully understood without saying. They signed you up. You went. You learned. You came home different. Quietly, but as a matter of top priority, you'd been given the tools to thrive and the freedom to perfect and enjoy yourself. That feels mostly gone from a lot of communities now. Now, we don't talk about it because it has been crowded out by everything else on the calendar. Bringing it up now can feel futile. We stay quiet and so we never realize we all