Robin Keisler Mitchum says she has never left Lexington, that her roots are right here where she was born and raised. She even lives in the same house where she grew up in the 1960s.
Mitchum is a member of Lexington High School’s class of 1978, which is about to celebrate their 45th reunion this year. Her high school was the original building that later housed Lexington Middle School, and her class was the last to graduate from there.
Where the Kleen Kare Dry Cleaners now sits at the intersection of North Lake Drive and Columbia Highway was once a 7-11 convenience store. Students walked there to get a drink and a snack before school started in the morning. Mitchum remembers that a single stop sign was all that was needed to direct traffic at the quiet intersection back then.
After graduation, Mitchum started work at South Carolina National Bank. She worked at other jobs over the years and learned printing skills through the Technology Center. She was married in 1989 and found a job at the County of Lexington printshop that lasted 28 years until 2018, when she retired. Mitchum has two sons, a stepdaughter and three grandchildren.
In 1996, she discovered belly dancing, which she performed over twenty-six years and taught for thirteen. She retired from belly dancing in 2019 to enjoy her retirement but found that she couldn’t stay away. She returned in August of 2022, and is now teaching belly dance beginner and intermediate classes at the Lexington Leisure Center.
Mitchum says, “First and foremost, belly dancing is so much fun; it’s very challenging. This is not a dance you can come and just learn in two or three days or months. This isn’t a step dance, it’s a movement dance. You have to move muscles you don’t even know you have. It’s just a way to keep in shape. Come to the Lexington Leisure Center on Monday nights at 7:15 p.m. and join us.”
Mitchum has come full circle since her days growing up in the country, in a small town in South Carolina. She has lived full and productive years. A great deal of change has come to her hometown, and with age have come new adventures for her. Robin Keisler Mitchum might be the first person to tell you that aging may be inevitable, but growing old is a choice.