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Paula’s Prom Girl is a Real Rocker

Stephanie Sloan is not a girly-girl. She is a rather shy, no-nonsense, hard working 17-year-old student. Yet when the counselors at the Wood River High School got together to pick the eighth annual Paula’s Prom girl, they didn’t hesitate to name the musical prodigy.

Steph (as she is familiarly known) and her older brother Nick Sloan, 18, play local gigs as a duo known as The Sloans. Originally from Los Angeles, the Sloan family of five moved to the Wood River Valley in 1998.

Jeff Sloan, Steph’s father, passed away almost four years ago.

“Dad was very, very musical,” Steph said. “He played sax and all sorts of whistles. He was in the Boulder Brothers,” a locally based Celtic folk band.

When Steph was just 7-years-old, she started singing in St. Charles Church choir with her father. “After a year, they handed me a tambourine, which then led me to playing drums in the middle school band.” Since then she has learned to play guitar, piano, banjo, trumpet, French horn, contrabass, trombone and ukulele. Oh, and she sings. The music is in her.

As The Sloans, Nick and Steph performed their original and cover music live at the Sun Valley Center for the Arts Wine Auction in 2008, for a Crisis Hotline Benefit dinner at Hailey’s Ellsworth Inn, at the Wicked Spud, for the Friends of the Hailey Public Library Garden Tour, and at the Community Campus for the Villa La Paz Foundation and Amnesty International.

“I feel most comfortable when I’m on stage performing,” Steph said. She is also a member of the Wood River High School’s Colla Voce (the jazz choir), concert band, orchestra and drumline. At the Heritage Festival in Anaheim, California, she received the Maestro Award two years in a row.

This summer you can hear The Sloans play at the Northern Rockies Folk Festival (on Aug. 7 at approximately 12 p.m.). She will also be a theater camp counselor for the fourth year running for St. Thomas Playhouse’s Company B and in the Playhouse’s musical presentation of “Pippin.”

Next fall, Sloan will attend Berklee College of Music in Boston, one of the foremost music schools in the country. But before that, on May 1, she has a little thing called her senior prom to attend with her friend, Ben Thompson.

As she has done for the past eight years, Paula Proctor, of Paula’s Dress Shop in Hailey, arranges for one girl to be outfitted and feted for prom courtesy of the shop and a host of other donors:

Her shoes (donated by Holly Mora), pashmina (donated by Susan Parkinson) and dress all come from Paula’s Dress Shop. Tara Ooms of Tara Bella will donate flowers. Lorraine Conner will provide a facial; Greg Hinshaw will cut her hair and Shelly Lard of 3rd Floor Salon will style her hair on prom night.

The list goes on: Lynda Smith will give Steph a manicure and pedicure. Kary Kjesbo will provide jewelry and Noelle Hodge will do make-up. Jan William will even give her a massage to loosen up the knots in her drumming-sore shoulders.

Local pro Dev Khalsa will take prom photos. Julie Watson and Carol Klick have donated additional funds for the night. And DaVinci’s in Hailey has donated dinner for the lucky young couple. Finally, to send her off with some cash prior to college, funds were donated by Marcie Graff, Carol Harlig and Tonja Bass. Kirsten Phillips donated a gift certificate to Paula’s Dress Shop and Proctor said anyone may still donate to the cause.

“It’s going to be a new experience,” Steph said about all the pampering. “It’s really cool.”

To donate or for more information call Paula Proctor at (208) 578-0888.