VALDOSTA — For 50 years, Eleanor Strickland McGowan taught ballet, including 37 years at The Ballet School in Valdosta.

“I’m not that old,” she jokingly protested in a phone call Thursday. 

“Miss Eleanor,” as she is affectionately called, began teaching at age 14, helping well-known teacher Marie Crockett with her ballet classes.

“Mother (also named Eleanor Strickland) had enrolled me for dance classes with Marie Crockett at age 3,” she said. “I loved it and never wanted to do anything else.”

A year after Miss Eleanor began helping Mrs. Crockett with her classes, a woman called from Fargo asking for a dance class to be taught there each Wednesday. At 15 years old, Miss Eleanor didn’t think she could do it, but her mother did.

“My sweet mother drove me to Fargo every Wednesday and sat in the school auditorium until I was finished,” Miss Eleanor said.

Her mother was not only an encourager, but rolled up her sleeves and helped out when the Fargo people wanted a Christmas dance program.

“My mother made little elf skirts (and hats) with bells on them, and they wore white shirts. It was wonderful and I was hooked.”

During the summer months, Miss Eleanor studied with Joseph Lavinoff at Carnegie Hall in New York and with Thalia Mara (well-known teacher and author), George Mahoney and Yurek Lazowski at the National Academy of Ballet. She then studied for two years in Washington, D.C., with Mary Day (Washington Civic Ballet) and Fredrick Franklin at National Ballet Society. From Washington, she went to Boston, Mass., where she was enrolled at the Boston Conservatory with Jan Veen, Ruth Ambroise, Bob Gilman, Irene Lynn and others. Her training included an extensive study of all forms of dance, including ballet, pointe, variations, modern, jazz, character, acrobatics, ethnic and folk and many other subjects relating to the dance profession. Here also, she was asked to teach several of the children’s classes which are opened to the public.

Upon completion of her work at the Conservatory, she taught at Dansarts Studio in Little Rock, Ark., and was asked to be Ballet Mistress for that studio from which many of the company members of Little Rock Civic Ballet came.

Generations of families have been students of Miss Eleanor at The Ballet School. One of her former students, Leslie Limbocker Seeger, went on to study at the Alabama School of Fine Arts and the University of Utah, known for its dance program. Seeger danced in Europe three years and later worked for International Ballet Rotaru and Georgia Ballet in Atlanta. She is currently dancing in New York and freelancing. 

“From the first time I saw a dance recital, “Sesame Street,” a Ballet School production, dance — and especially Miss Eleanor — have been one of the greatest influences in my life,” said Kelly Smith, who began taking lessons at age 8 and has been teaching at The Ballet School 25 years.

“Mine, too,” said Kathy Turner, director of The Ballet School and a teacher there 36 years. 

Miss Eleanor calls the children she has taught as “blessings … that I could have been a part of their lives. It was an opportunity that God gave me to share my love of dance.”