Correspondent photo / Sean Barron Enrique Cruz of Boardman is all smiles after presenting his daughter, Aubree Maloney, 8, a rose during the 22nd annual Father-Daughter Dance in Boardman Park on Friday.

BOARDMAN — For a minute or two, Tony Marr and his daughter, Araya Marr, found themselves locked in a friendly battle of adjectives with each other.

“She’s beautiful, smart, funny and adventurous,” Marr, of Poland, said about Araya, 11.

“He’s weird,” Araya said with a chuckle in describing her father.

Suffice it to say that perhaps one descriptive word that fits both family members is energetic, because the two of them were among those who engaged in a series of slow and fast dances during the 22nd annual Father-Daughter Dance on Friday in Boardman Park’s Lariccia Family Community Center.

All five dances, including one each Friday and Saturday, have sold out, Karen McCallum, the park’s recreation director, said.

“All told, 352 daughters got the opportunity to spend a special night with their dads and father figures,” she added.

“I like seeing my friends and doing stuff with my dad,” Araya said about her favorite aspects of the popular celebratory event for girls ages 5 to 13.

“I love spending time with her as part of a one-on-one thing,” said Marr, who runs Clever, a Youngstown-based full-service marketing agency. “For me, (the dance) is about setting a good example.”

‘I’m not a big dancer, but I’ll dance for them,” Steve Schuyler of Howland said, referring to daughters Liliana Schuyler, 9, and McKenna Schuyler, 13. “They look forward to it every year.”

Schuyler, who works for Howmet Aerospace in Weathersfield, has attended the family-friendly funfest for seven years, the exception having been in 2020, when the event was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially, his former wife found information about the dance online, which set the stage for Schuyler and his daughters to convert it into an annual family tradition, he said.

The dance likely also will be far reaching for McKenna and Liliana because it will be something the two girls will remember fondly “20 or 30 years from now,” he added.

“I like the most getting dressed up and looking back at the younger kids and thinking, ‘That was me,'” said McKenna, a Hubbard Middle School eighth-grader who is part of her school’s volleyball team and mentoring group, and who hopes one day to go to college to become a lawyer or a marine biologist.

For her part, Liliana came up with her own set of adjectives to describe her father: “kind,” “caring,” helpful” and “handsome.” Her favorite aspects of the dance are simply spending quality time with him and being able to select what to wear for the dance and dinner, she said.

Of course, such an occasion likely wouldn’t happen without several volunteers conducting the sometimes intricate legwork. They included Lynn Haug, who spent much of her time Friday laying out the tables’ centerpieces, preparing roses for the fathers to give to their daughters, decorating each table, tying ribbons and performing other tasks.

Haug, who retired as Youngstown State University’s events planner, said such volunteer efforts also are therapeutic because of the death of her husband. As a means of coping, she seeks to stay as active as possible, which also included a recent 10-day hike in southern Utah near Zion National Park, Haug added.

“This is a lovely event, and it sells out so quickly,” she said about the dance.

It wasn’t long before much of the community center was converted to a makeshift discotheque equipped with a disc jockey who played many popular slow and fast dance tunes to the delight of the children and adults alike.

Among them was the 1978 hit song “YMCA” by the Village People. Later Friday evening, the daughters formed a long line before their fathers entered, each of whom gave his daughter a red rose before they danced and serenaded to the slow Valentine’s Day-themed 1965 song “My Girl” by The Temptations.

“I think the dads are enjoying this as much as the daughters,” McCallum said.

The celebratory evening also included a catered buffet-style dinner, crafts and professional keepsake photographs.