Organizer extraordinaire puts skills,
compassion to work for good causes
Story by Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Michael Callahan
Submitted Photos
Doris Munkus likes to organize. When she’s not organizing line dancers, senior citizens and fundraisers, she turns to her own household.
“I color-code everything,” she confesses, not the least bit sheepishly. “I have five grandchildren, and I color-code their towels, their bedding, their chairs, even their toothbrushes and drink cups. They can’t change them, either. I don’t have to buy name tags at Christmas, I just wrap their gifts in their colors.”
Freud might call her anal about organizing, but folks around Pell City call her genius. Over the past six years, her organizational skills have helped raise more than $150,000 for various charities and first responders in her community. Her main claim to fame is Dancing With Our Stars. This annual competition mimics television’s Dancing With The Stars, pairing experienced dancers with local bankers, professionals, business owners, elected and school officials, firefighters, police officers and others.
But Doris’ organizational skills go back much further than the 2014 debut of DWOS, however. “I organized a float to represent Dallas County for former Gov. Guy Hunt’s inauguration parade,” says Doris, who taught art in that county’s school system when she lived in Selma. “I staged an Invention Convention for the school children, too. I like to organize big things.”
In 2001 former Pell City Councilwoman and fellow church member Betty Turner picked up on Doris’ organizational abilities and asked her to start an exercise class at their church, Cropwell Baptist. “I couldn’t then because my mom lived with me and I was taking care of her,” Doris recounts. “She died in 2002, so in 2003 I started that class. It was free and open to anyone.”
After seven or eight years, the exercising hour got a little too long. Doris had taught line dancing as activities director at the Pell City Senior Citizen Center in the late 1990s, so she suggested adding that to the mix. Everyone involved agreed.
“We did a half hour of exercise, half hour of line dancing for several years, then we dropped the exercise portion and just did line dancing,” Doris explains. In 2009, the classmoved to Celebrations, and Doris added a$4 charge per class to cover the expenses of renting Celebrations, buying the music, the signage, the DVD player and other incidentals. The rolls show 50 people, but the average attendance is about 30.
While the class was still at Cropwell, the late Kathy Patterson was on the board of the St. Clair County Relay for Life and asked whether Doris’ line dancers might want to raise money for cancer research. “That first year we raised $2,000, and dancing wasn’t even involved,” Doris says. True to form, shestarted thinking bigger, and the class held sock hops the next year. People responded well, so Melinda Williams, the American Cancer Society representative for St. Clair and several other counties, suggested the dancers hold a Dancing With Our Stars as another fundraiser.
“Our first was February 14, 2014,” Doris says. “February seems to be best month, but we have done it in March and April. In February of this year, we raised $23,111 and those numbers are still climbing because we’re selling DVDs from the show.”
Deserved rave reviews
Tim Kurzejeski is a battalion chief and one of four members of the Pell City Fire Department who line-danced to the 1977 Bee Gees hit, Stayin’ Alive, at the first DWOS – in full protective gear. He has nothing but praise for Doris and the DWOS event.
“Thefire department here in Pell City has had a dance team at Dancing With Our Stars every year since that first year,” Kurzejeski says. “Doris is great. She’s very energetic, she just tries to do the best and most she can to give back to the community. She’s very easy to work with, and it’s actually fun.”
Dancing With Our Stars no longer raises funds for Relay for Life. Instead, the money goes to a different organization each year. In 2016 it benefitted Children’s Hospital of Alabama, in 2017, it was the Pell City Fire Department, in 2018 the Pell City Police Department, and this year, it was for the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department. Next year, DWOS will raise money for the St. Clair County Children’s Advocacy Center. “The dancers and people who buy tickets respond well to local charities,” Doris says. “People call us and ask us to raise money for their charity, and we put them on a list. We check them out, and the entire committee must agree on them. We’ll never do it for an individual, though.”
She has a committee of eight line dancers who do much of the planning for the event. “We already have the menu for next year,” she says. “Vickie Potter, who’s in charge of the food, already has next year’s food court and theme. It will be a hobo theme in 2020.”
Other committee members include Donna McAlister, photo and technical coordinator; Kathie Dunn; Kathy Hunter; Lavelle Willingham, treasurer; Martha Hill; Paulette Israel and Sue Nickens, Silent Auction coordinators. Jeremy Gossett has been emcee, and Jamison Taylor has been the disc jockey for the event since its inception. Griffin Harris is the tech guru who sets up the text line the audience uses to vote for favorites. “It’s all run by volunteers,” Doris says.
Recruiting dancers was hard the first year, but it’s much easier now. In fact, people often call Doris asking to participate. “It’s amazing how much talent we have in this area,” she says. This year, 600 people paid $25 each to eat dinner and watch the show at Celebrations, where all but one DWOS has been held. Next year, it will move to the CEPA building, on the gym side, which holds 2,000 people. “There’s more parking space there, too,” Doris says.
St. Clair County Sheriff Billy J.Murray readily admits that Doris is one of two people he just can’t say “no” to. (The other is his wife.) “Doris has a tremendous work ethic, and she’s very organized,” he says. “There’s always a lot of stuff that comes up that someone has to handle in preparing for the show, and she steps up to the role of managing the chaos.”
Although dancing is out of his comfort zone, he has already signed up for next year because Doris makes it so much fun. “I know how to be sheriff, but I don’t know how to dance,” Murray says. “We (the sheriff’s department) had nearly 30 people helping in some capacity this year, dancing, building props, helping with costumes and makeup. I wouldn’t hesitate to partner with Doris and her line dancers again.”
Joanna Murphree, the executive assistant to the administrator of St. Vincent’s St. Clair, has worked with Doris on DWOS for the past three years, and she, too, has high praise for this wonder woman. “The hospital has had a team in the group division, the Dance Fevers team,” she says. “Doris’s organizational skills are phenomenal. She’s pleasant to work with, too, and very thorough.”
Destination: Worthy cause
When she’s not working on DWOS, Dorisorganizes short, one day or overnight trips for the St. Clair County Baptist Association as a volunteer, as well as cruises and one- and two-week bus trips under the banner of her Pell City Cruisers. This sideline began in 1998, when she worked at the senior center. She charters the buses, plans the itineraries and the meals, books the hotels, the whole shebang. “I did one 14-day bus trip where we flew into Las Vegas and toured 12-14 national parks in nine states,” she says. She has done tours to Canada, Colorado, Montana, Utah, the Ark in Kentucky and the Panama Canal Zone. She makes photo books of each trip, just like she does with each DWOS event. “All of these trips and cruises are open to anyone of any age or denomination,” she says.
In addition, she and the Pell City Line Dancers perform at community events, such as the Halloween Festival at Old Baker’s Farm in Shelby County, Homestead Hollow in Springville and the Pell City Block Party. They dance monthly at the Colonel Robert L. Howard State Veterans Home in Pell City, at the Village at Cook Springs, and at Danbury in Inverness in Shelby County.
When she isn’t traveling or organizing something, she helps her husband, Victor, who is retired from National Cement in Ragland, with Munk’s Renovations. They remodel apartments, refurbish the cabinets they remove and resell them. The couple has been married for 22 years, and yes, she organizes his life, too. But he doesn’t mind at all.
“She’s a wonderful lady, she’s sweet, lovable, real thoughtful,” he gushes. Victor says she organizes his closet, too. “I have a section for work shirts, for dress shirts, for shoes, socks, pants and underwear,” he says. “She has tags, so I’ll know where everything’s supposed to go. She doesn’t like for me to leave my shoes or clothes lying around, and she’ll come behind me and pick them up. I’ve been living with her for almost 23 years, and I guess neither of us is going to change.”
Editor’s Note: For a video or DVD of still pictures of the 2019 Dancing With Our Stars, call Doris at 205-473-4063. They are $10 each.
You may also call her for more information about her trips.
Line dancing classes meet at 9 a.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays, with beginner classes following at 10 a.m. on the same days. Payment is on the honor system, with a box set out to collect the $4 per person charge. l
