Editor's note: Erica Broach and her partner Hector Pereira placed fourth in the 2008 World Championship.

Erica Broach, of Parkton, should be sitting in a Hereford High School classroom this week taking notes in classes, where she is a straight-A student.

Instead, the 16-year-old is in Taiwan, roller skating on a wooden dance floor twice as big as Hereford's gym.

Broach and her partner, Hector Pereira, 17, from Reading, Pa., qualified to compete in the 2008 World Championship, sponsored by the International Roller Sports Federation.

They took second place this summer at the U.S. championships in Lincoln, Neb. They and the first-place team earned the right to perform at the junior world class team dance event in Taiwan.

They compete Wednesday and Thursday, Nov. 12 and 13. The awards ceremony is Friday, Nov. 14.

"It's such an adrenaline rush when I perform," Broach said last week, a few days before she left. "It's so different from practice. I love the costumes, the hair and the make-up. I get butterflies before it starts, but once I'm skating, I'm fine."

Broach, a junior at Hereford, and Pereira, a junior at Wilson High School in Reading, have been practicing for the competition four days a week at the Fantasy Skating Center in Reading. They rehearsed one compulsory dance that contains steps and moves they must complete. They also chose to dance to the tango "Roxanne," from "Moulin Rouge," as their original dance and picked Beatles' love songs for their free dance segment.

Their three dance routines comprise 7 1/2 minutes of intense physical and mental concentration.

"I get way more tired in competition than when I'm practicing," said Broach, who takes weight-training classes at Hereford High. "It's incredible how weak your legs are after a three-minute dance."

This is her first international competition, but the expense of a trip to Taiwan is keeping her parents, Barbara and Bill Broach, at home. Erica did her share of fundraising to be able to go. She sold candy at Graul's and Hereford High School, and joined fundraising projects at the skating center in Reading.

Her skates cost about $400 a pair, and she's taking two pairs to Taiwan. Her favorite dance costume -- black with red flowers and hundreds of sparkling gemstones -- has a $600 price tag.

Broach, Pereira and their coach, Jane Wojnarowsky, flew to Los Angeles on Nov. 6, where they met up with 14 other skaters who qualified for junior championships in other skating events. They then flew to Taiwan as a team.

It takes two

"Erica is a top-notch skater," said Wojnarowsky, a former world champion skater who gives lessons in Ohio. She has taught both Broach and Pereira as individuals for several years, and paired them up last year as a team.

"They have talent and dedication and it hasn't taken them very long to become one," she said. "They have grown together in communication and you can see the emotion between them when they skate."

Broach and Pereira think so much of Wojnarowsky's training that they drive more than six hours to Ohio once a month for lessons.

"I do homework in the car, because once we get there, we practice all day Saturday and Sunday morning, then we head back home," Erica said.

Broach's love of skating began when she was a 2-year-old who tagged along with her 8-year-old sister, Aster, to group roller skating lessons at Rollerland in Shrewsbury, Pa.

"I don't remember skating that young, but I know I've been skating my whole life," Broach said.

After Rollerland closed in the late 1990s and the facility became the Shrewsbury YMCA, the sisters traveled to Bel Air and then to Laurel for lessons. They joined skating clubs and soon began entering competitions.

Their mother ferried the girls around, paid for their costumes and made sure homework got done. She now has photo albums and videos of many of those competitions.

Aster Broach, now 22, never competed internationally. She stopped skating after she graduated from the University of Delaware.

Her sister's plans are to skate as long as she can.

"I can't imagine my life without it," Erica Broach said. "Even though I wasn't able to go to things like homecoming because of my schedule, it's worth it. I love it."

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