Lexie Selting, daughter of Dixie (LaBree) Selting and Jamie Selting, wore a 57 year old dress to Fairview's prom on April 22. Her grandmother, Anna (Heggen) LaBree, wore the same dress to her freshman prom at Carter County High School in 1960.

In 1987 her mother wore the dress to her senior prom at CCHS. In that year, LaBree altered the dress for her daughter. She added a lot of ruffles since Dixie had shown her a picture of a prom dress she liked from a magazine.

"That looks just like my freshman prom dress, all we need to do is add some ruffles," LaBree stated.

It ended up being a little bit more work than she had initially planned. Before she could even begin sewing, LaBree had to mix dye to match as she couldn't find ruffles in a matching color.

After that year the dress was kept in the back of the closet where it stayed until last summer when LaBree's granddaughters were in Ekalaka visiting. As the girls were playing dress up, a conversation about her prom dresses started. LaBree proceeded to dig all of her old dresses out. By chance, Lexie really liked the dress her mother and grandmother had worn to their proms.

Lexie asked LaBree if she could take off the 1980s ruffles and add rhinestones.

Anna LaBree

Anna (Heggen) LaBree on CCHS prom night in 1960.

LaBree added the dress to her winter projects, noting that "hemming the dress was no easy task."

In all, she hemmed about 15 yards, by hand. It reminded her of a football field.

"Yes, that was a lot of hand sewn stitches," she noted.

In addition, each of the rhinestones were hand placed one at a time.

And so, a few weeks ago, the 57 year old dress was given new life and made it through yet another prom.

Three proms, three generations, one dress.

"It was a labor of love, but so worth it to see my granddaughter wear the dress to her junior prom," LaBree stated.

"To me, it was an honor to have her want to wear my dress."