A 93-YEAR-OLD woman in the United States got the chance to attend her first prom since 1940 after her great-grandson asked if she would be his date to the junior prom one week ago.

    Katie Keith said she had just been kidding around when her great-grandson Drew Holm first told her he wasn’t going to the prom because he didn’t have a date.

    “I said, ‘Well, I’ve got a dress, I’ll go with you’,” Katie told Wave 3 News. “I was just joking you know.”

    But Drew loved the idea and, later that day, formally asked his great-grandmother if she would go to the prom with him.

    “I said ‘Drew, my goodness, I don’t want to go to the prom with you. Surely you can find a real cute girl to go with you’,’’ Katie said.

    But Drew was unswayed, telling his great-grandmother, “No, I can’t do that. You’re the prettiest woman.”

    And after Drew got special permission from the principal to bypass the school’s 21-year-old age limit, and even had a special invitation delivered to Katie’s house, she decided to put on her dancing shoes again.

    “I thought, if that kid wants me to go to the prom that bad, I’ll go, the heck with it,” she told Wave 3 News.

    Katie said prom has changed since back in her day, when girls wore their “going-to-church dresses” and danced the waltz.

    But even though the moves have changed, Katie was happy to get back on the dance floor at Crothersville Junior-Senior High School with her great-grandson, who bought her a corsage.

    “Everybody got up, you know, and they were doing this shuffle thing, and Drew said to me, ‘Let’s dance, grandma. Will you dance’?’’

    “I said ‘Sure.’ So him and I got out there and shuffled right along with them,” she said.

    Drew took his great-grandmother home at 9.30 p.m., just in time for her bedtime.

    He then joined his girlfriend, who he began dating after he asked Katie to the prom, at a bowling alley after the party.

    Drew said he will probably take his great-grandmother to the senior prom, but Katie said her big night out on May 1 was all she needed.

    “Enough for me,” she said. “One’s enough.”

    (SD-Agencies)