This story begins when an eighth-grader named Dan Beam and a ninth-grader named Laura Ferrier lock eyes in the Kimmons Junior High cafeteria in Fort Smith, Arkansas. The year is 1970, a time of love beads, groovy peace signs embroidered on faded jeans, and far-out platform shoes. In that decade, local teens spent weekends hanging out at Central Mall, cruising Grand Avenue, or grabbing a burger at the Purple Onion or Beverly’s. On most autumn Saturdays, they turned their TVs to Razorback football, seeing what new move Head Coach Frank Broyles had up his sleeve. On Sunday mornings, they switched to KISR 93 to hear Casey Kasem’s brand-new radio show, American Top 40.
Dan and Laura are sharing their origin story while sitting at a table inside Flame Gymnastics, the Fort Smith gym they’ve owned for thirty years. Dan looks at Laura like she’s the winning lottery ticket of his dreams.
“To me, she was everything I could have hoped for,” Dan says, smiling.
He doesn’t need to elaborate, the look on his face tells the rest.
Laura, who was the head cheerleader at Kimmons, remembers Dan as being cute. Apparently, that was qualification enough. “Look,” she says, “I was in the ninth grade.” Which is fair. At that age, cute carries a lot of weight.
The two dated through junior high and high school, but as they grew older, the flame began to flicker. Dan thinks even that was meant to be, because when they reunited, they had enough life experience to know that the love they’d experienced in junior high was the real deal.
Dan and Laura married forty-five years ago, on October 3, 1980. “We got married after work on a Friday, at St. Paul Methodist, in the little chapel,” Laura says. After their vows, they took the friends who’d come as witnesses to Taliano’s Italian Restaurant.
Dan grins. “And we had a wonderful one-night honeymoon at the Ramada Inn. It was supposed to last two nights, but my dad called and needed me to come back to work.”
In the years that followed, the couple welcomed their children: Sara, Kari, and Daniel Jr. Laura and Dan strove to teach their children the importance of independence. “From the time Sara, our oldest, was ten years old, I would tell people, ‘If Laura and I were to die, as long as the kids had money and transportation, they would survive.’ They knew how to shop. They knew how to cook, to clean, to take care of themselves, because Laura made sure they did.”
Dan worked long hours in his family’s mining business, and with three young kids at home, Laura was always looking for ways to keep them engaged and learning. Even though the family lived an hour away in McCurtain, Oklahoma, Laura often found herself in Fort Smith for appointments and errands. Eventually, the trips included visits to Flame Gymnastics.
The three Beam children had a knack for gymnastics and worked their way up to Flame’s competitive teams. Which meant they were spending more and more time at Flame. After a while, Laura worked in the office and then transitioned to a coaching and teaching role.
Dan became involved with the gym when the original owner, Blu McMullin, resurrected the boys’ team and needed another coach. Dan had played three sports in high school and had also played college baseball, so he signed on.
In July 1995, when Flame Gymnastics was ten years old, the Beams bought the business from Blu. “For the first fifteen or twenty years, we worked sixty to eighty hours a week,” Dan, who now calls himself semi-retired, says, “But we loved it, so that’s how we could do it. Laura basically retired years ago. First, she had to take care of my mom, and after my mom passed, Laura had to take care of her mom.”
The Beams’ daughters, Sara and Kari, live in Minnesota and Tennessee, respectively. Their son, Daniel, is local and handles day-to-day operations. The gym is open year-round, employing fifteen coaches, some of whom have worked at Flame for thirty years. Current enrollment is approximately 800 students per month. There’s also a pool for summer swim lessons, taught by Jayne Jacobson, a woman Dan calls “the greatest swim teacher working today.”
As Dan speaks, a tiny girl attending Mom and Tot classes runs by in a pink sparkly tutu, holding her mother’s hand.
“Young children learn socialization, gross motor skills,” Laura explains. “Although it appears to be play, the kid-sized gym equipment is organized and used in a way that lays a foundation for the child. The interior of our gym is totally open. You can stand and watch, or sit and watch, in every section of the gym. You can hear everything. You can see everything.”
The gymnastics classes become more challenging as the students age. Everything they learn in one level will help them with the next. Some of them will go on to join Flame’s competitive teams.
Dan describes Flame as a gymnastics facility that happens to have competitive teams, not a gym looking for the next Olympian, although they may discover one. Some centers, he explains, work with gymnasts whose lives revolve around the sport, with some even choosing homeschooling to accommodate their training. The Beams take a different approach, one that encourages academic achievement first, while teaching their students the discipline and determination the sport requires.
“I don’t care how talented you are,” Dan says. “You’ll reach a point in gymnastics where something will be difficult, and it’s how you handle that difficulty that determines if you’re going to succeed or not. It becomes as much of a psychological challenge as a physical one.”
Laura pushes a loose curl off her forehead. “You see that same set of kids leave here, go to college, get into the work force, and you see them use those mental gymnastics skills in life situations.”
”We’ve had girls and boys who’ve gone on to do D1 gymnastics,” Dan adds, “We’ve had kids who’ve gone on to be major college cheerleaders. In the last few years, one of our gymnasts, Bailee McCorkle, transitioned to pole vaulting and was a member of the national champion Razorback track team. Interestingly, we’ve had two students become Miss America: Shawntel Smith (1996) and Madison Marsh (2024).”
To date, approximately 75,000 students have studied at Flame Gymnastics, and more than 800 have won All Around and Individual State Championships. Dozens more have earned top ten finishes at USA Gymnastics regional and national competitions.
Some of the Beams’ greatest joy has come from teaching students with challenges.
“We’ve been blessed. We’ve had numerous children come in with physical disabilities, emotional challenges, and learning disabilities. It’s been humbling and inspiring to walk alongside children with different abilities. We’ve seen so many of them grow, expand their lives, and do great things.”
Dan says working with kids has softened him, turned him into a bit of a teddy bear, although it took several years. He waves his hand across his eyes, trying to keep his emotions in check, as he explains his transformation.
As the new era of Flame Gymnastics unfolds, Dan and Laura reflect on the past. Nearly half of Laura’s Facebook friends are people she has met through Flame. The Beams are now seeing the grandchildren of their first students showing up for programs. They run into Flame acquaintances all over town, and they’ve been spotted by former students at Disney World and the Cancún airport.
The Beams’ life story is a classic tale of cause and effect. Two teens met, fell in love, got married, and had children—all worthy accomplishments. Then together, they bought Flame Gymnastics, and because of that decision, their influence has traveled too far to be measured. Such is the life of these keepers of the flame.
For information concerning Flame Gymnastics and Tumbling programs for children up to the age of eighteen, visit flamefs.com.
