Betty Stockman (l), dance teacher at Roy McCulloch School of Dance and owner of Stockman School of Dance, goes through Sherie Stockman Harbin's dance scrapbook with Mimi Maddock, one of Stockman's students in the 1950s. Photo by Amanda Taylor

Betty Stockman gave her stage advice before every recital: "If your bow falls out of your hair, just keep dancing. If your shoe comes untied, just keep dancing. Whatever happens, just keep dancing."

"When I run into former students, they not only tell me they remember it; they have passed it along to their children. When life throws them a curve, they ask, 'What would Miss Betty do?' The answer always is still Keep on dancing," said Stockman, who introduced hundreds of Columbia baby boomers to tap, ballet, acrobatics, and social dancing.

Perhaps it's because they started their dancing lessons with Stockman during their formative years that the steps were ingrained as a rhythm of life. Many former students, including her daughter, Sherie Harbin, love dancing now as much as they did when they ran to the door of the Old Shandon studio as children.

Columbia girls perform in one of the many recitals in the '50s sponsored by Roy McCulloch School of Dance. Harbin, now living at Lake Murray, followed in her mother's rhythmic footsteps and began teaching at the Woodrow Street studio after she entered Dreher High School. Years into a successful career with IBM, Harbin admits: "I wish I could find somewhere to tap dance again. As it is, I often find myself tap dancing in elevators if no one else is in there or anywhere else there's a good hard floor."

Other former students of "Miss Betty" seek her out at community events to tell her once again how much their dance lessons have meant to them over the years. The still-lithe teacher knows how they feel. "I began lessons with Marion Dean when I was about six," a couple of years older than many of her beginners had been. "I still want to dance myself."

Roy McCulloch, Stockman's brother-in-law, asked her to teach a few classes for him when he opened his studio in Shandon. Those few lessons turned into a life-long love and an enduring career for Stockman.

"During the summers Roy would take us to New York to the Dance Educators Association workshops," Stockman recalled. "We learned the latest dances and techniques during the day, often from some of the top dancers around the world. Those were the years a lot of ballet dancers were defecting from Europe, so we might have dashing men in red boots showing us steps we'd never seen before."

Classes went from 8 am to 5 pm, but even after a long day's workout, Stockman said, "We'd rush back to the hotel, take a shower and take in a Broadway musical."

In 1984 after McCulloch's death, the studio became Stockman's, and she took her own advice; she kept dancing. "Although we prepared for recitals, and sometimes took on community involvement, like a commercial, we danced just for the love of it. There was nothing competitive about it."

Another memorable personality at the dance school was Julia Kearse who played piano. "If the students slowed down, she slowed down. If they speeded up, she speeded up. Her foot was always going." Stockman recalled being able to buy new sheet music at Silver's Dime Store - for a dime. "Mrs. Kearse could play anything."

Stockman figures every child who came through the dance school would remember dancing to Mrs. Kearses' rendition of Nola. "It had a good tinkly rhythm and an easy count," Stockman said, demonstrating on her sunroom floor that she still has both.

She also still has pictures taken at the dance school's farewell party. Former students came back in droves to reminisce about the happy times they'd had dancing their hearts out for Miss Betty. The wooden studio was razed in the late '60s to make way for "progress."