There and back again, a Macon Countian's tale

Gregory’s mother offered to take her to Hawaii since that was a trip she was looking forward to and never got to go.

“My mom asked me if I’d like to go to Hawaii, and I was like, ‘well yeah!’ ” said Gregory. “So, we went to Hawaii for vacation, and I fell in love with it. I just knew this was my happy place, I belonged there. We went back a year later, and I still felt the same way about it. There’s just something about Hawaii.”

After coming home from the second visit, Gregory couldn’t stop thinking and talking about Hawaii to the point where something had to be done.

“My mom finally told me to either do it, or let it go,” said Gregory. “I thought about how I would go about moving there. My mom started looking online for jobs in Hawaii and told me she found a police office that was hiring, and that my bachelor’s degree wouldn’t go to waste.”

At the time, Gregory was working as a student loan debt collector, and wasn’t happy at all.

“It was terrible,” said Gregory. “’How bad could it be being a police officer in Hawaii?’ I thought to myself. So I applied to their police department and went throughout their extensive background check, went there two different occasions for testing and they gave me a job offer when I was there in December of 2016. I moved to Hawaii Jan. 4 of 2017, and started their Academy Jan. 9, 2017.”

Gregory says that Hawaii has an extensive academy program which lasts for 28 weeks versus 8-12 weeks here.

“I was shocked that their Academy is seven months long,” said Gregory. “It was quite extensive. It was a great experience, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I only planned on being in Hawaii for about three years, get some experience and then move back home. That three years turned into almost seven years. I ended up buying a house there and was thinking of maybe staying there. I was engaged and almost got married, but we both wanted to be near our families. He didn’t want to leave his family in Hawaii, and I wanted to come home to mine. We ultimately parted ways.”

Gregory quit the Kauai police force, put her house up for sale and moved back home.

“Things turned out exactly how they were supposed to,” said Gregory. “After being in law enforcement for awhile, I wanted a break once I came back home. I had no clue what I was supposed to do with my life.”

While in Hawaii, Gregory had been taking a high intensity group workout class for an hour each day, sometimes doing two hours. She thought back to that and came up with an idea to begin something similar in Macon County.

“It was time for to get out of my head, find a group of amazing women, and do something like I loved in Hawaii,” said Gregory. “I loved that class. Once back here I realized that we have nothing for group fitness or anything geared toward women here in Lafayette or surrounding towns. I had been following a fitness instructor online who lived in Knoxville, for probably 12 to 14 years. I saw that she was doing a weekend certification for her Dance 2 Fit business. I decided to give it a shot and see where it goes so I went and got certified.”

After certification, it was time to start her own classes in Lafayette. There was one problem though. Where would it be?

Gregory began having classes at the Green Room, across from Key Park, in January of 2024, but her class outgrew that very quickly. She then became a member of the Macon County Chamber of Commerce and began having classes there. Then, classes grew again from her first class at the Green Room of 23, to 60-plus at the chamber.

“I had to move again due to the number of people that were coming to classes,” said Gregory. “I have a good friend, Natalie Nash, who works for the elementary school, and she reached out to the principal and asked if we could do the classes there. Now we are doing classes at LES (Lafayette Elementary School), and my largest class thus far has been 71 people. We have class at LES on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. We have classes at the Donoho Hotel in Red Boiling Springs on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

While the classes started out for women, Gregory says that her class is open to everyone. She has had kids from age five to older adults attend classes.