Beth Mitchell

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Beth Mitchell (Elizabeth Webster Mitchell) was an American teacher and dancer who specialized in the Carolina shag. She was born on October 7, 1972, in Greensboro, North Carolina. Mitchell started dancing shag at nine years old and became a competitive dancer as a teen, joining the National Shaggers Association at fifteen. She attended Dalton L. McMichael High School and earned a bachelor's degree in elementary education from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she was a member of Alpha Chi Omega. She worked as a third-grade teacher at Stoneville Elementary School.

In 1998, Mitchell and her dance partner Brad Kinard won the National Shag Dancing Championship in Myrtle Beach as the Non-Pro Champion. A week later, during the Gainesville–Stoneville tornado outbreak, a tornado struck Stoneville. The car she was riding in with her mother was thrown into a tire shop, and Mitchell died at the scene; her mother was seriously injured. Mitchell is buried in Stoneville Municipal Cemetery.

Her death led to several memorials, including the Beth Mitchell Memorial Scholarship for National Shag contestants who are planning to attend college, and the Beth Mitchell Memorial Shag Dance Competition in Greensboro. Friendship Park in Stoneville was built as a memorial to Mitchell and another local victim. In 2002, she was inducted posthumously into the Beach Shaggers National Hall of Fame, Keepers Of The Dance.