Hooray for Mother Zoey!

#218 / Joyous News Extra

Welcome to the world, Miss Ella O’Geary! And congratulations to Huntington’s newest grandparents, Joan and Sam St. Clair. Twenty trips around the sun, and suddenly The Flood’s beloved dancing girl is all grown up and has a little girl of her own.

Zoey Stull O’Geary — who as a youngster danced to our fiddle tunes at venues all across the state — gave birth at 7:56 this morning to 7 lbs 8 oz Ella.

Our Minds Danced Back to Another Little Girl

New mother though Zoey now is, in the Floodisphere she will always also be that 7-year-old hoofer whom we celebrate in this new little video:

Set the Time Machine for 2001

To appreciate the setting of that film, you need to realize that 2001 was a particularly busy year for our long-time hamonicat Sam St. Clair.

Twenty-two years ago on a single day in May, Sam became a husband — marrying the remarkable Joan Hall -- and a stepfather to Joan’s daughter, Zoey, who is seen here dancing with her mom at the wedding.

Then, two months later, Sam also joined The Flood, where he is now beginning his third decade as the band’s entire reed section.

As soon as Sam came aboard in the summer of 2001, Zoey was right behind him. The talented, creative child brought a number of gifts to The Flood.

In early 2002, for instance, we brought out a line of t-shirts that featured Zoey’s fun drawing, in which she imagined The Flood in a flood, jamming joyfully in a boat. For the next half dozen years or so, Zoey's shirt was a popular item on the merch table at our shows and on the band’s website.

And as reported earlier, Zoey also helped design a svelte, pretty washboard for Dave Peyton to play on all our rollicking jug band numbers.

Tiny Dancer

But it was with her feet that Zoey made her main contribution to The Flood’s joy.

Through out the early years of the new century, Zoey danced at most of our live shows, from the riverfront performance with the Huntington Symphony Orchestra to mountaintop sets at Snowshoe Resort, from the trendy St. Zita’s Grille in downtown Huntington to the magical Brazenhead Inn in the Potomac highlands to the East.

Of course, we don’t take credit for inspiring her, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t note that Zoey continued her performing career. She studied dance at Virginia’s Radford University, from which she graduated in 2017. After that, she worked as a dance instructor at Expressions in Rhythm Studio in Raleigh, N.C.

Ben O’Geary Wins Her Heart

It was at Radford that Zoey and her loving dog, Wendell, met Ben O’Geary of Henderson, NC. Ben was on the Radford golf team. With a degree in finance, he was in Zoey’s graduating class.

“Wendell immediately fell in love with Ben,” the couple later wrote in their wedding announcement last year, “and Zoey, never questioning Wendell’s judgment, soon thereafter fell in love with Ben as well. They became an inseparable threesome.”

Zoey and Ben married a year ago this month on a beach at Hilton Head Island, surrounded by friends and family.

And, from afar, the little girl’s Family Flood teared up. Baby Ella, you are joining an extraordinary clan!