Carol Helmer’s mother started the whole thing. She was a dance teacher in Minneapolis where Carol learned to tap and, as a teenager, assisted her mom in the classroom. When she graduated from high school, she stopped dancing and went to work as a secretary. She did not get back into dance until her own daughter, Laura, was 4. Laura started dance at a studio in River Falls and Carol started teaching at that studio. She opened her own studio in the basement of her home in Beldenville in the spring of 1982. Laura started teaching a couple years later.

Carol was the director of the child support agency in Pierce County for 25 years. She retired from that position in 1999 and, together with Laura, opened the studio on O’Keefe Rd. in Hudson. In 2004, land was purchased in the St. Croix Business Park in Hudson and a new studio was built. Both the Beldenville and the Hudson studios were in operation until May of 2010 when the Beldenville studio was closed after 28 years.

Carol’s idol is Debbi Dee, and she has adopted her style. She has won many regional and national awards including the Symposium prestigious “Super Tap” award which honors the memory of Linda Joseph. In June 2019, she received the first "Leaving a Legacy" award from Masquerade Dance Competitions. Carol’s choreography lives on in Laura and in her former students who are now, themselves, teachers.

The Helmer Dance Studio is truly a family operation. Laura and Carol work well together. Laura’s husband, Jason, and Carol’s husband, Milt, are great handymen. Grandchildren, Jazmine, Nick, Jack and Carolyn have all danced at the studio. Clay tried one year of dance in Elk River and decided to play baseball instead. Carol feels very blessed to have such a wonderful family and very privileged to have tapped with so many lovely children...and adult tappers over the last 40 years