{"id":8045,"date":"2024-08-08T10:07:06","date_gmt":"2024-08-08T14:07:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fredastaire.com\/bentonville\/?post_type=team_member&#038;p=8045"},"modified":"2025-05-28T16:16:58","modified_gmt":"2025-05-28T21:16:58","slug":"ray-waite","status":"publish","type":"team_member","link":"https:\/\/www.fredastaire.com\/bentonville\/member\/ray-waite\/","title":{"rendered":"Ray Waite \u2013 Owner &amp; Dance Instructor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Originally from California, Ray moved to Central Oklahoma at a young age with his family. He enjoyed being competitive in many sports and was awarded a spot on the Oklahoma All Star Team.\u00a0 He then shifted his competitive spirit to the outdoors where he competed as a professional in Bass fishing tournaments. Ray attended Saint Gregory\u2019s University where he graduated with a Bachelor\u2019s degree in Business Administration and specialized in Human Resources Management. He later got transferred for work to Iowa where he worked as a Director of HR for many years.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">In 2020, Ray moved to Northwest Arkansas to be closer to family. Once in the area, he searched for a new hobby and dancing was on his bucket list; so, he contacted Fred Astaire Dance Studios. A few months after starting, Ray was already working on his first showcase performance. His competitive side brought him to take part of several competitions and he became a rhythm finalist at Fred Astaire Dance Studios National competitions.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">As Ray got involved in the dancing world, he saw the opportunity for a career change and decided that opening his own studio will be rewarding considering how much he had enjoyed dancing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":7440,"template":"","class_list":["post-8045","team_member","type-team_member","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fredastaire.com\/bentonville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/team_member\/8045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fredastaire.com\/bentonville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/team_member"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fredastaire.com\/bentonville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/team_member"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fredastaire.com\/bentonville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/team_member\/8045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fredastaire.com\/bentonville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fredastaire.com\/bentonville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}