Beth Mitchell

Mitchell was born on October 7, 1972, in Greensboro, North Carolina, to Worth Mitchell and Nancy Lee King.[1][2] She was a great-granddaughter of the politician and businessman James Jefferson Webster, a grandniece of Captain John Ray Webster, and a cousin of checkers player Jeff Webster.[3] Through her mother she is descended from Scottish emigrants George Irving and Jane McDonald, who came to the United States in 1834 from Closeburn, Dumfriesshire aboard the Hector.[4][5] She descended maternally from the Robertson family, a colonial Virginian family, through her great-great grandmother Margaret Hurt Robertson.[5][6] Through her Robertson ancestry, she was also a relative of mathematician Ione Grogan.[5]

Mitchell began dancing Carolina shag, a form of swing dance, when she was nine years old.[1] As a teenager she became a competitive shag dancer and, at the age of fifteen, she joined the National Shaggers Association.[1] Mitchell attended Dalton L. McMichael High School, where she was a member of the cheerleading squad.[7] In 1990 she made the All-Star Cheerleading Squad for the 42nd Annual East-West All-Star Games in Greensboro.[8][9] After high school, Mitchell 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.

Upon graduating from college, Mitchell worked as a third grade teacher at Stoneville Elementary School in Stoneville, North Carolina.[10][11] She continued to compete in the non-professional shag circuit, including in two national championships.[1] Mitchell was the Non-Pro Champion of the National Shag Dancing Championship.[12] She and her dance partner, Brad Kinard, won the championship in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, in 1998.[13][14]

The F3 Stoneville, North Carolina, tornado crossing US Highway 220, and entering the town of Stoneville.

Mitchell died on March 20, 1998, a week after she won the National Shag Dancing Championship.[14][2] She and her mother were driving in their car when an F3 tornado hit Stoneville. Their car was thrown against the Claybrook Tire Shop as the building collapsed.[11] Mitchell's mother was taken to the hospital in critical condition. Mitchell died on the scene from the impact.[15] She was one of two people in Stoneville killed during the 1998 Gainesville-Stoneville tornado outbreak.[13][10][2]

Mitchell is buried at Stoneville Municipal Cemetery.[16]

Friendship Park fountain that is a memorial to Mitchell

After her death, the Beth Mitchell Memorial Scholarship was founded.[12][17] The scholarship, organized through the National Shag Dance Championships, is awarded to National Shag Dance contestants who are planning to attend college.[18][19][20] A dance competition named after her, the Beth Mitchell Memorial Shag Dance Competition, is held annually in Greensboro.[12][21][22]

Friendship Park in downtown Stoneville was built as a memorial to Mitchell and Powell Hickman, a local farmer who was also killed by the 1998 tornado.[23][24]

In 2002 she was added to the Beach Shaggers National Hall of Fame's Keepers Of The Dance.[25][1] She is also listed in Shag Atlanta's memorial.[26]