USED PROM GOWNS AVAILABLE FOR ANOTHER NIGHT ON TOWN

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 27, 1992                   TAG: 9202270367
SECTION: NEIGHBORS                    PAGE: S4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BETSY BIESENBACH SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
USED PROM GOWNS AVAILABLE FOR ANOTHER NIGHT ON TOWN
Prom time is coming up soon, and when parents see the price tags on some of this year's gowns, they might start considering taking out a loan to buy the dress of their daughters' dreams.
The prices of a prom dress is about $200, but some can cost up to $1,000, said Tonya Conner, a junior at Northside High School.
Tonya should know. She has been to two or three dances a year since she entered high school, and for each event, she wanted a different dress.
In most cases, the parents buy the dress, Tonya said, or if it's really expensive, they make their daughter pay for part of it.
But even when the child helps out, buying a prom dress can be a major expense for a family. But, Tonya's mother, Kitura, has come up with a plan to allow high school girls to buy nice dresses without sending their families to the poorhouse.
On March 7, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., PTA parents from Northside, Cave Spring High and William Byrd High will hold a used prom dress sale at the old Heironimus store at Crossroads Consumer Mall. For a $5 per dress fee, cleaned formal and cocktail gowns will be put out on the racks and tagged with the seller's asking price. The $5 fees will pay for the schools' alcohol-free after-prom parties, and the sellers will get the rest of the money.
Conner said the idea came up several years ago at a workshop where she heard about two schools in Virginia Beach that had put on a similar event.
The first step was to find a location. Salem High School is planning a dress sale in its gym, she said, but Northside's locker rooms don't have enough mirrors. Also, the gym was already taken the day of the sale.
She approached Crossroads' managers about donating space, and was both surprised and thrilled when they agreed.
Parents have volunteered to set up racks, put prices on the dresses and handle money. Volunteer seamstresses also will be available to give advice on alterations, she said.
Conner expects the average prices for the dresses will be $25 to $100. A $200 dress, she said, could sell for $70. "That's a lot of dress for the dollar."
Both parents and students think it's a good idea.
"There are a lot of kids out there who just can't afford these kinds of dresses [when new]," Kitura Conner said.
"I think it's great," Tonya Conner said. A lot of her friends trade dresses back and forth, anyway, and with more than 300 dresses in one store, "there will be a lot bigger variety" than in a regular dress shop.
Beth Long, the Cave Spring PTA parent who is helping with the event, said that both the PTA and the school administration have been supportive of the project. The parents she's talked to are enthusiastic because of the economy being the way it is.
For the girls, she said, it's "an opportunity to have a dress that I think they'll like."
It's also a chance for people who have old prom dresses hanging in the attic to get rid of them.
Long said her daughter is "real picky," but she plans to look over the dresses, anyway.
The sale is also a good chance for members of Cave Spring's Students Against Drunk Driving chapter to get involved in fund raising. "They say we don't use them enough," Long said.
Barbara Allan, a member of William Byrd's after-prom party committee, is helping with the sale, and will also try to pick out a dress for her daughter, Krista, who will be out of town that weekend.
"Hopefully, the girls who are sensitive to their parent's pocketbooks and checkbooks will use this as a way of getting a gown," she said.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB