What makes a true champion - talent, hard work, dedication, a strong will, a great teacher and a ver supportive family, that's just the start and Morgan has been extremely lucky to have all of the above. Add her passion for highland dancing and this young lady has truly put our country on the map.
Coming from New Zealand, thousands of miles away from the "hub" of highland dancing, it is a credit to the dedication of ALL New Zealand SOBHD teachers, that although our numbers are small, our standard has kept improving and at the forefront has been Judy Clark who has devoted the last 16 years to making Morgan the sensation she is and coupled with the incredible emotional and financial support of Morgan's parents Paula and Mark the gifted dancer was on the road to success at an early age.
All of us in our small dancing community have watched this young girl grow from a bright eyed, bouncy little dancer to a beautiful very dedicated and disciplined young lady. As a young academic Morgan could have easily followed so many of her predecessors and left dancing behind her to go to a University around the country, but she din't she knew that Uni would interfere with her dancing and so stayed to pursue her dream of World Championship success. It has been lonely at the top with many of her NZ dancing friends dropping out either because it was virtually impossible to beat Morgan or because their passion had diminished and many dancers in her position would possibly cruise through a competition knowing that they just needed to get through each dance but not Morgan. Every spectator at every competition has had the privilege of witnessing the best she can give. Even dancing out in events where people have no idea what she is doing - she gives her absute best and she could so easily have become cocky and obnoxious but she has remained a gracious and extremely grounded individual.
Over the years even though we would like to admit that we competed against Morgan she mainly competed against herself and the very few times that anyone beat her we all knew that most were a momentary lapse or she had made a mistake and it is a credit to her that every year without ANY major competition she heads off to Scotland not having any idea how her rivals are dancing.
