The year was 1981. Urban Cowboy, staring John Travolta and Debra Winger, had just come out and the cowboy craze began sweeping the world.

Mary Hoedeman, tired of office work and in need of an athletic outlet, answered an ad in the newspaper calling for “dance instructors needed, will train”. With the public storming dance studios Mary was hired on the spot, put in training class for 3 days, and began teaching country dancing full time, sometimes staying just a few lessons ahead of her students.

Within months Mary was winning competitions, top teacher awards, and was promoted to Assistant Manger and then Manager of Exclusive Dance Club in Houston, TX.

By 1986 Texas Dance Production had contracted Mary to be the lead dancer/teacher in their line of instructional videos which were sold on TNN around the airing of the White Horse Saloon Dance show.  The sales and exposure quickly led to a full time travel schedule for Mary. Touring 340 days a year, throughout the US and Canada, Mary was personally responsible for teaching over 20,000 dance enthusiasts, sharing her love of dance. Eventually Pepsi Co came calling making her their National Spokesman.

In 1989, Mary and her partner won their first UCWDC division 1 competition in Las Vegas Nevada which was soon followed by numerous national titles and finishing in the top 5 in the UCWDC World Competitions.

Remember Ricky Van Shelton’s music video “Wild Man” in 1994? Mary did the choreography. Mary soon became her own video producer, scripting, hiring talent, overseeing editing, and marketing for 9 more instructional videos. And she’s kept going…her current total is 25..Mary’s dance students converged on Nashville Tennessee from all over the US, Canada, as well as parts of Europe, to train for a week when she created a Dance Camp for adults there. . As the capstone event of the week the students choreographed a dance and performed it live on national television at the Wild Horse Saloon in downtown Nashville.  Mary more recently successfully developed a huge following at Indiana University, 120 students every semester – with a wait list! One significant event, was a Mary choreographed dance to “Keep Your Head Up” by Andy Grammar which her 100 plus students performed as a Flashmob to bring awareness to the health risks of looking down at smartphones and tablets.

Mary’s latest creation is a new online training system, DanceTodayTM, offering today’s technology, today’s music, and today’s convenience.in January 2020 Mary was honored at the UCWDC World Championships as a Pioneer of Country Dance. And Mary’s undertaking for 2021? She’s producing a documentary on the history of C&W Dance. Mary believes that Urban Cowboy, Exclusive Dance Clubs, and Texas Dance Productions are the three most influential forces in the style and popularity of C&W Dance today!  The goal? To document an accurate history of C&W Dance “Houston Style”, which remains the prevailing style internationally, and re-energize the popularity of our art form.