Alumni Interview: Five Things That Matter with Betsy Shaw '83

It can be rare for someone to match her talents with a life filled with purpose and achievement. It is rarer still when that life leads to the very top of her field on the world stage. As a Burr and Burton student, Betsy Shaw ’83 couldn’t envision that her athleticism and competitive spirit would lead her to represent the United States at the first-ever Winter Olympic Games for the sport of snowboarding - a sport that didn’t even exist when she grew up.

Beginning as a ski racer first for the Bromley Outing Club and then moving on to the Burr and Burton Ski Team, Betsy knew two things - she loved winter sports, and she belonged in athletics. She participated on the Burr and Burton Field Hockey Team and Ski Team for four years and went on to compete in ski racing for one season at the University of New Hampshire. But, she found that she began to lose her passion for ski racing. Just as her love of ski racing was waning, the sport of snowboarding was surging in popularity, right here in her backyard. Burton Snowboards was founded in Londonderry, Vermont in 1977, and Betsy felt lucky to have a front-row seat for the birth of this new sport. 

By the time she turned 20, Betsy had become a competitive snowboarder. “Jake Burton reached out to offer me a sponsorship,” she said. “I was sponsored by Burton and a member of the Burton Team throughout my career.”

For the next 13 years, she competed around the world first as a member of the World Pro Snowboard Team, then as a member of the first-ever Snowboard Olympic Team in Nagano, Japan in 1998. On the World Pro Snowboard Team, Betsy competed in the International Snowboard Federation (ISF) competitions. She won the U.S. Open here on her home mountain of Stratton in 1991. She won the World Title for giant slalom in 1995, and bronze and silver medals in the 1995 ISF World Championships in Davos, Switzerland. In 2014, Betsy was inducted into the Vermont Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame. 

Betsy has been fortunate to have the ever-present support of her family throughout her snowboarding career and also during her life before and after snowboarding. The Shaw family has been an integral part of the Northshire area of Vermont for generations. Her grandfather, Walter “W.H.” Shaw, taught at Burr and Burton and went on to serve the school as a trustee. He founded W.H. Shaw Insurance in Manchester in 1908, and Betsy’s grandmother, Esther Shaw 1913, went on to run the company after her husband Walter died in 1934. Betsy's father Doug Shaw '47 served as President of the company. Then her brother, Andy Shaw ’75, took over as President until the company was acquired by The Richards Group last year, and Andy also served as a Burr and Burton trustee. Betsy’s three older sisters are also alumni: Sally Shaw ’74, Nancy Shaw ’75, and Cindy Shaw ’79.

Betsy’s strong sense of family and community has provided the wind at her back over the years, and throughout our conversation, her appreciation for and dependence on her deep sense of place has grounded and inspired her. Betsy lives in Buckinghamshire, England with her two daughters. She still owns her home in Middletown Springs and loves coming back to Vermont frequently.

I was always on the Bromley Ski Team, and I was quite successful at (ski racing) growing up. I could compete in slalom well, but I couldn’t beat the Stratton (SMS) girls at speed events, because they had a bigger, longer race track to practice on. After two years on the Burr and Burton team, I went to Green Mountain Valley School (ski academy in Waitsfield, VT) when I was a junior because I wanted to be a serious ski racer—but I cried for six weeks because I was homesick, so I came home. As remorseful as I was for quitting, I wonder if I might not have become a pro snowboarder had I graduated from a ski academy. So I continued to race for Burr and Burton and won a state championship competition (individually), but we didn’t win as a team. After graduation, I went to the University of New Hampshire and I was on the ski team, but halfway through that season, I started feeling like I was losing the fire for ski racing. I transferred to UVM and didn’t bother with their ski team, because it was so competitive, and I thought, ‘Well, I guess I’m done.’ Around ‘84, ‘85 when snowboarding started ramping up, and everyone in town was doing it, I thought, ‘What is this?! It’s such a weird sport!’ I went to the first U.S. Open at Stratton (in 1982), and the girl who won it came down in her bikini top, and the sun was shining, and it looked like so much fun. She won a chunk of change in the event, and I thought, ‘I need to try this sport!’ When I started, I thought it would be easier than it was, and my competitiveness kicked in, and I wanted to learn more and get better. In the beginning, we all competed in everything (all disciplines - halfpipe and alpine events), but I was more natural in the alpine events. In the first race where I competed, I won $300. I was still in college, and I thought it was a great way to spend the weekend and win some money! 

It was really amazing! It was also tainted a little by politics. At that time, the ISF (International Snowboard Federation) (hosted) the main tour, and we also had the X Games and World Championships. Even though I was ranked #1 in giant slalom on the ISF, when the FIS (International Federation of Skiing) started with snowboarding, I didn’t have any points on their tour. But, they needed us, because snowboarding was so new, so I had to go and play their game. But, nobody is immune to it - it’s the Olympics! It was a really cool experience. I wish I could put myself back there at the Opening Ceremonies - just the scope of it. It was pretty amazing. I had never been to Nagano before the Olympics, but I had competed in Japan. I often did well when I competed in the World Cups there. They treat you like you’re famous in Japan. 

To be honest, I think I was a little bit immature and kind of ill-behaved as a student. So, sports really saved me, because (my coaches) kept me as straight as possible. I loved field hockey, and I had a lot of fun. I really appreciated Coaches Ouellette and Stefansky (Bonnie Ouellette Niles and Lisa Stefansky Richards). They were fresh out of college because they were so young - they looked like students! One snowy morning, I had the brilliant idea to cross-country ski to school through fields and across the Equinox golf course. It took me longer than expected due to snow drifts, and I showed up an hour late drenched in sweat. Coach Stefanski saw me skiing up the hill, laughed at me, and then gave me a note excusing my tardiness. I never forgot that. 
We had a fantastic time playing field hockey. We went to the state championships when I was a senior, but we didn’t win. They went back the next year and won the state championships. Those coaches really enabled that for our team. Sports was something that kept me interested in school. Academically, Bev Leslie was the first teacher I had that ever got through to me in math. I was taking Algebra 2 as a senior with much younger kids because math was not my thing. But she (Bev Leslie) spoke my language and finally gave me confidence in math. When I came back to Burr and Burton to teach German, Barb Miceli was my mentor. She was fantastic, and I couldn’t have done it without her! And, Dagny St. John was the retired German teacher at BBA, and she was integral in getting me hired. Even though she was retired, she stepped in to substitute teach for several months when I was hospitalized while pregnant with my youngest daughter.

One of my first non-waitressing jobs was working for Burton Snowboards when they first moved to Manchester. I answered phones for them. I was competing in snowboarding until I was almost 34, so then I thought if I was going to have kids, I needed to get going. I had my daughter Esther ’20, and she was two when I was trying to get into teaching. I wanted to have another (daughter Isla, age 18), and I thought ‘I’m not cut out for this (teaching and being a parent).’ I think the timing was wrong because there were many aspects of teaching that I enjoyed. I wanted to be a good teacher, and I felt like I was being both a mediocre teacher and a mediocre mom. I have such respect for good teachers because so much goes into it. I’ve been a writer/editor for BabyCenter.com forever, and now, I’m writing a memoir about moving to England and bringing my husband home here and how it felt to leave Vermont. I met my husband in Vermont. He’s a real Brit, but he left all that for me. His mom and sister are from here (England), and his father was from Dundee, Scotland. He lived there (in Vermont) with me for 24 years. He built our house in Middletown Springs, raised our kids with me, paid taxes. He got terminally ill with a neurodegenerative disease, and I felt like he needed to go home to England. Being a Vermonter and having such deep roots made me realize that he needed to go home and honor his own roots. In Vermont he had friends, and he was a photographer and worked in construction, but I could always tell he wasn’t quite entirely in his own culture and fitting in, but he stayed all those years for us. When he (got ill), his sister invited us here. We were going into medical debt (in the U.S.), and he was still eligible for National Healthcare in England. I really wanted him to be together with his sister. He died 10 months after we came to England in April of 2022, and during that time so many friends from his childhood and college came out of the woodwork. It was the best decision I could have made - it was so wonderful. We brought him to Scotland twice, and sort of took him on a world tour to see everyone and everything. Our daughter Esther had already been accepted to college in Aberdeen, Scotland, and our younger daughter, Isla, is going into her final year of high school here. 

I think about how I’m one of those people who stayed in Vermont forever until now. My family goes back six generations on the Shaw side in Vermont, and so many of them went to Burr and Burton. When I went (to Burr and Burton), I felt like it wasn’t really a big transition to high school. All four of my older siblings had been there, my father and grandfather went there, so did my grandmother. It just felt sort of familiar. I appreciated the fact that this wasn’t just a generic brick-building kind of school. I loved the history of the Seminary building, and every time I walked through one of the squeaky wooden-floored hallways, I thought, ‘This is actually a pretty special place to go to school.’ Even though I traveled all around the world, when I got home I would notice myself feeling, ‘There’s no place like Vermont.’ A lot of my snowboarding friends went out West, and I never felt drawn to that. The mountains are great, and the snow’s great, but it’s just not Vermont. I did like traveling to Europe more than out West because it had more history and felt more cozy like Vermont does. But, I do feel like I’m a Vermonter, and I always will be.