By Emma Pendergrass

Never miss out on a good person that can make your life great just because it’s a little difficult, the good ones never come easy. Ginger Baker was my clogging teacher for the first 12 years of my life. She always had a smile on her face no matter what. When anyone tried to bring her down Ginger would ignore it and get back up!

Ginger has been clogging almost all of her life. She also has a daughter, Misty Harrison, and son-in-law, Chip Harrison, that has clogged their whole life as well! Ginger taught her daughter since she was young,  and raised her to love clogging. Ginger’s daughter, Misty, owns her own dance studio called Southern Dance Studio. Neither of them has ever give up on anything! As Ginger always said “Work Through the Pain.”

When I started clogging I was only 2 years old. From start to finish I loved every single second of it! Ginger always knew how to make our Monday nights better. We worked hard for all of those years, and in 2017, we won our first National Clogging Championship in Nashville, Tn. This past year I did not get to go but my team and Ginger went. While there she got selected to be put into the Clogging Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tn. Ginger has always inspired me to always reach for the stars and never give up on anything you want to achieve. She is and will always be a very special person in my life.

“In a gentle way, you can shake the world” — Mahatma Gandhi

This story is part of a series of articles from Michael Grindstaff’s Language Arts Class at Elizabethton High School.

Students were asked to write about inspirational people in their lives. The Elizabethton Star is proud to share these with our readers.