Despite some criticism from the odd member of the community, the High River Spring Ball is open to anyone no matter the sexual orientation.

A Facebook page was created that was against the committee's rules of not allowing same sex couples or transgender individuals to participate.

Dance coach for the ball, Joanne VanDonzel sets the record straight and says they've never restricted any sexual orientation to the ball.

"The only rules that we have is that the kids live in High River, or go to school in High River and are in the 11th grade of schooling and that they have 100% attendance and that they register as a female or male," she says.

The Spring Ball is yearly tradition in town that's been happening for now 27 years.

Van Donzel added that the male and female partner rules stated in the registration is to instruct potential partners to be friends and not in a relationship in the ball. The boy-girl rule also goes back to traditional ballroom dancing rules.

She says they've never turned anyone away for the reasons being protested in the Facebook group ANTI High River Spring Ball.

"There is no problem, anybody can register whether they are gay, lesbian, black, Jewish, Catholic or Protestant that doesn't matter to us we teach all kids that want to comply with the rules the ball has set."

Registration closed for the event and the committee and participants have already held their first meeting with all involved. VanDonzel says its time to move on to what is important and that's the ball itself.

"We're happy with 18 couples that have registered and we have our parent meeting and the parents then get to meet each other and their child's partner, we roll as we are and everybody's welcome."

The High River Spring Ball goes March 12 at the Highwood Memorial Centre

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