About Tom & Sossy Hyatt

Sossy (pronounced SO cee) was born in Lebanon and moved to the United States at age 10. Along with her twin sister, Nora, she was trained as a classical violinist from childhood all the way through age 18. After 182 units, in college, and changing her major five times, Sossy landed in radio, learning all aspects of that business. Today Sossy is the Director of Marketing & Business Development in the credit union industry.
Though she dabbled in ballet and modern jazz in her teens, it wasn’t until a little over four years ago that she found her nitch in the country dance world. This evolved from country two-stepping in the clubs to a country dance team, and finally to a Pro/Am situation with Tom. It only took one year for Tom & Sossy to fall in love and make plans for marriage. And who better to preside over the ceremony but the incomparable Skippy Blair. Then After only two years of earning her way through Newcomer and Novice divisions Sossy had become a teaching assistant with Tom. As such she could no longer dance as an amateur and was forced to move into the Pro Pro division. Once she was settled in Sossy became a teaching Pro with her own students (which enabled her to grow at a break neck pace). So it wasn't long before her growing desire was to dance with her husband as a partner. And according to the rules she could only dance in ProAm with students and in Division I with husband Tom. So she stepped up to the challenge as a relatively new dancer. But in only two years as a Pro Sossy has now become the
UCWDC Crystal Division I World Champions

Tom moved from Texas to California in 1984, as part of the Bentley’s organization, (a chain of Top 40 nightclubs). In the late 80’s, at Tom’s urging, the chain converted to a country-western format called, "Denim & Diamonds". In order to give the new format as much country feel as possible, Tom arranged for he and his staff to take country dance lessons and from there he was hooked. Tom moved into competition in the United Country Western Dance Council (UCWDC) circuit, and in the span of 14 months, rose from a non-dancer all the way to UCWDC's Division I. Since then Tom has added teaching, judging, Emceeing, DJing and studio management to his dance repertoire.

With 21 years of experience in the nightclub industry, Tom says the studio’s atmosphere was one thing that drew him to it. “The studio has the design and layout of a club,” he explains, “and I thought it had a lot of potential to be like a dance club but without the alcohol and the problems that go along with that.”