And the winner is ...

  • Published
  • By Peggy Hodge
  • Office of Public Affairs
Mr. John Edwards, Space and Missile Systems Center Engineering and Architecture Wing. Yes, that's right--our very own John Edwards recently won $100,000 as a contestant on the new ABC show "Dance Machine."

"To get on the show," said Mr. Edwards, "I just answered an e-mail from a member of my dance classes to audition and decided to do it 'on a lark.' It was fun. I had no expectation of even getting in."

Mr. Edwards first got interested in dancing because it was more fun than regular exercise.

"I get bored with exercise," he said. "This is much more fun. I started out in a salsa class and then went to a cardio-hiphop class (what they danced on the show). I like the music beat of the hiphop best."

He's been attending dance classes in cardio-hiphop for approximately 6 years. His dance practice schedule is two days of self-sessions and six classes per week. Each class is an hour and self-sessions are an hour and a half.

To produce this show, Edwards explained the crew works morning until night--every day.

"I was amazed at how much detail they went into," he said. "For example, to get just one of the photos that looked like boxer pictures at the rear of the stage, hundreds had to be taken."

And, needless to say, about his future, Mr. Edwards says "I am going to keep on dancing. I would like to learn Michael Jackson and James Brown stuff."

His advice to anyone who would like to break in to dancing--"just go to classes and if you can't do it right, just stay at the back and keep trying. Just keep trying and practice, practice, practice."

His plans right now for the money are to customize a Prius and maybe make a movie on Thomas Paine.