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Letter to the editor

A life full of friends, dancing

By MARTY CLEAR Times Correspondent
Published October 5, 2007

Mr. Rader, who went by "Richard," was suffering from lung caner, and he knew his death was drawing near. He spent his last days writing letters to all his friends, making sure they knew how important they had been to him.

No one knows exactly how many letters he wrote before he died Sept. 21 at age 65. But Mr. Rader, who never married, had many devoted friends.

"He was always surrounded by friends," said Mary Frances Granell. "Always."

Granell had worked with Mr. Rader at Frank Rey Dance Studio, where he taught for more than 40 years. Mr. Rader was happily single his entire life, she said, and considered the dance studio his home and the people there his family.

Indeed, the dance studio's well-being was on his mind in his final hours of life.

"He wrote me a three-page letter," Granell said. "Mostly it was things he wanted to make sure I didn't forget to do at the studio."

Mr. Rader had been a constant presence at Frank Rey Dance Studio from 1966, when he moved to Tampa from Atlanta, until just a few months ago, when his health started to fail.

He lived across the street from the studio for many years when it was in Seminole Heights and moved to Citrus Park when the studio moved to the Waters Avenue location in the 1980s.

"He was a wonderful teacher, and the students loved him," Granell said. "He was especially close to the adult students. And he was great at preparing the young students for professional work and for getting into college dance programs."

It wasn't unusual for Mr. Rader's students to go on to professional careers in dance.

In fact, Granell first met Mr. Rader when she was his student. She then went on to work with him as a teacher at the studio.

Mr. Rader had resigned from the studio briefly a few years ago. But when Granell and a friend bought it, they persuaded him to return.

Technically, she became his employer.

"But even then, I still kind of thought of him as my boss," she said. "He was that big a part of the studio. His dedication to the Frank Rey Dance Studio was unfaltering. He was my teacher, my colleague, my mentor."

Mr. Rader was born and raised in Knoxville, Tenn. He began his dance training there and started his professional career as a dancer and actor in a stage production of West Side Story in Atlanta.

In the 1960s, he came to Florida to work as assistant choreographer on a play called The Cross and the Sword.

The choreographer was Frank Rey, who owned a dance studio in Tampa. He offered Mr. Rader a position there, and Mr. Rader took the job.

He taught all styles of dance, from ballet to modern and tap, and he served as the associate artistic director of Florida Ballet Theatre, the studio's ballet company.

"He was very creative and not just about dance," Rader said. "He could do lighting and even costumes, and he had a sense of artistry in everything he did."

Mr. Rader learned he had lung cancer last year, but he insisted on continuing to teach as long as he was able. He was still teaching classes as recently as this past summer.

"His dedication to the Frank Rey Dance Studio," Granell said, "was unfaltering."

Mr. Rader is survived by his sister, Sandra Thress.

[Last modified October 4, 2007, 08:14:11]