Not too hip to Hula-Hoop

Andrew Glazer

FAIRGROUNDS -- At first glance, 9-year-old Taylor Henninge looks like

a mild-mannered kind of guy.

He wears thick glasses, has a wormy build and slightly grown-in adult

teeth that still look a little too large for his mouth.

But give that boy a Hula-Hoop and he’ll move.

He hops, shimmies and gyrates with an oily fluidity.

“I try not to move around too much,” Taylor said after placing second

in his age division in the Orange County Fair’s Hula-Hoop competition.

His yellow hoop spun around him like the rings around Saturn.

He swiveled his hips even as sweat dampened his blond bangs, doubling

the speed each time the hoop spun closer to his Velcro sneakers.

Eventually, after a confusing announcement from the judges, Taylor let

the hoop drop.

“He was robbed,” said his uncle, Richard Quackenbush, of Fullerton.

“He thought it was all over.”

Another standout was Taylor’s 6-year-old sister and near clone,

Marlee. Her movements also were graceful, minimalist and far from

showboaty. She kept a stone face during her heat and lasted almost four

minutes.

Santa Ana’s LaNisha Shivers, 11, chose a more theatrical approach. She

stood with her back to her fans, crouched so her chest was parallel to

the floor, back end pointing toward the blue summer sky, and shook her

hips with a violent urgency.

“She certainly has her own style,” said her mother, Ann Shivers,

barely getting it out before bursting into hysterical laughter.

Also worth mentioning was the crowd-pleasing 3-year-old Kelsey Markle

of Trabuco Canyon. She took an unorthodox approach to Hula-Hooping, while

her opponents spun the hoops around their hips in the oh-so-tired,

traditional manner. She let the hoop fall right away and then did a short

rendition of “The Twist.”

“I think she likes to dance more than Hula-Hoop,” said her mother,

Keri. “But she sure knows how to swing those hips.”