{"id":657,"date":"2026-02-15T14:20:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T19:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businessnews.blountcounty.news\/?p=657"},"modified":"2026-05-09T14:44:42","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T18:44:42","slug":"founder-of-van-metre-school-of-dance-appalachia-ballet-dies-at-86","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businessnews.blountcounty.news\/?p=657","title":{"rendered":"Founder of Van Metre School of Dance, Appalachia Ballet dies at 86"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"657\" class=\"elementor elementor-657\" data-elementor-post-type=\"post\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-7138b4d2 e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"7138b4d2\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-e-type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-5980fbd elementor-widget elementor-widget-theme-post-featured-image elementor-widget-image\" data-id=\"5980fbd\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"theme-post-featured-image.default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"626\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/businessnews.blountcounty.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/02\/Mrs.VanMetreTeaching-copy-626x1024.webp\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-image-660\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/businessnews.blountcounty.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/02\/Mrs.VanMetreTeaching-copy-626x1024.webp 626w, https:\/\/businessnews.blountcounty.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/02\/Mrs.VanMetreTeaching-copy-183x300.webp 183w, https:\/\/businessnews.blountcounty.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/02\/Mrs.VanMetreTeaching-copy-768x1256.webp 768w, https:\/\/businessnews.blountcounty.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/02\/Mrs.VanMetreTeaching-copy.webp 900w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 626px) 100vw, 626px\" \/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-e11454f elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"e11454f\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\n\n<p>Cheryl Van Metre, founder of the Van Metre School of Dance and the Appalachian Ballet Company passed away January 9.&nbsp; She was born in Maryville, Nov. 23, 1940, and pursued training in performance and instruction with the Chicago Ballet, the National Ballet of Mexico, England&#8217;s Royal Ballet Company, and the Kirov Ballet in the former Union of Soviet Socalist Republics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From those foundations, she launched the Van Metre School of Dance in 1957 and later the Appalachian Ballet in 1971.&nbsp; She was known to be passionately devoted to ballet instruction, but was also known as a strong mentor &#8211; including current Artistic Director Amy Morton who has served in that role since 1997.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Van Metre directed the Van Metre School of Dance for 39 years and the Appalachian Ballet Company for 25 before retiring with her husband Mitchell in Edisto Beach, S.C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Van Metre family requests memorials be made in her memory to the Appalachian Ballet Company at 215 W. Broadway Ave., Maryville, Tenn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cheryl Van Metre, founder of the Van Metre School of Dance and the Appalachian Ballet Company passed away January 9.&nbsp; She was born in Maryville, Nov. 23, 1940, and pursued training in performance and instruction with the Chicago Ballet, the National Ballet of Mexico, England&#8217;s Royal Ballet Company, and the Kirov Ballet in the former [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_angie_page":false,"page_builder":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-memoriam","category-maryville"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businessnews.blountcounty.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businessnews.blountcounty.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businessnews.blountcounty.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businessnews.blountcounty.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businessnews.blountcounty.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=657"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businessnews.blountcounty.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":666,"href":"https:\/\/businessnews.blountcounty.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657\/revisions\/666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businessnews.blountcounty.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businessnews.blountcounty.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businessnews.blountcounty.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}