Longtime leaders, teachers, coach in inaugural Hall of Fame class
The Vestavia Hills school system has announced its inaugural class of the Vestavia Hills City Schools Hall of Fame and plans to honor the inductees on Oct. 5 during the district’s 50th anniversary celebration at Pizitz Middle School.
The first class includes legendary football coach Buddy Anderson, beloved Superintendent Carlton Smith, longtime Pizitz Middle School Principal David Miles, the first principal of Vestavia Hills Elementary Liberty Park, Helen Holley, and longtime math teacher and math team coach Kay Tipton.
“The inaugural class of the VHCS Hall of Fame is the gold standard for educators,” Vestavia Hills City Schools Superintendent Todd Freeman said. “Each individual member touched the lives of countless students and colleagues. Their legacies of influence continue to impact past, present and future students. They exemplify what it means to be committed to providing every student the opportunity to learn without limits.”
The Oct. 5 ceremony will also mark the grand opening of the new Pizitz campus. Student ambassadors will conduct campus tours beginning at 5:30 that evening, followed by the 50th anniversary ceremony at 6:30 p.m. in the school’s new gymnasium.
Here is more information about each of the inductees to the Hall of Fame:
BUDDY ANDERSON
Anderson, in his 43rd and final season as head coach of the Vestavia Hills Rebels, has been coaching at the high school since 1972, when he joined then-head coach Thompson Reynolds’ staff as an assistant coach. He was promoted to head coach in 1978 and over the past 43 years has amassed 342 wins — more than any other coach in Alabama high school football history. During his tenure, the Rebels have advanced to the state playoffs 31 times and won state championships in 1980 and 1998.
But Anderson’s impact on his players and the community extends far beyond the scoreboard.
“Their whole program, the way they play, the way their kids act, I’ve got a lot of respect for that,” Spain Park head coach Shawn Raney said recently.
Anderson said he remembers those early years when the program and school system were essentially starting from scratch. His first year, students were at what is now the freshman campus (the old Pizitz campus). Now, as the school has grown over the years, Anderson said there are still some places in the building he hasn’t visited.
As he prepares to hang up his whistle at the end of the season, Anderson said he never would have imagined he’d still be here, but God has had His hand on him over his whole career.
“This has become home,” Anderson said. “It’s the only place I know.”
Being inducted into the Hall of Fame is an honor, he said.
“I was very humbled,” Anderson said.
Anderson won’t leave the school system just yet. For the next school year, he will transition into his new role as dean of students, in which he will mentor students and coaches. “That’s what God called me to do is work with kids,” Anderson said.
CARLTON SMITH
Smith, the school system’s third superintendent, died June 17 at the age of 83 and will be inducted into the Hall of Fame posthumously.
“I know he thought a lot of the school system,” his wife, Martha Smith, said.
Smith spent time coaching at Union Springs and Erwin high schools before coming to Vestavia in 1986 to become the third superintendent in the system’s history.
“He wanted to ensure everyone got a good education,” his son, Ken Smith, previously said. His father had a “tremendous impact” on education around the state, he said.
Bill Hasty, who served on the Vestavia Hills Board of Education in the mid-1990s, described Carlton Smith as “one of the finest men I ever met.”
Hasty said he enjoyed “five good years” of working with Smith and worked with him to help establish the Vestavia Hills City Schools Foundation.
Vestavia Hills Elementary Central and welcomed students from the Liberty Park community following its annexation in 1992. Under Smith’s leadership, the school system also greatly expanded its classroom resources and technology, according to a statement from the school system.
Bill Smith, Carlton’s other son, said he couldn’t be prouder of his father.
“Everything he did was about bettering the well-being and education of the children there [at Vestavia],” Smith said. “I think it’s very deserving; he’s very worthy of that.”
Ken Smith said his family is very proud of his father, and he knows it would mean a lot to his father to know the school system thought enough of him to induct him into the Hall of Fame.
Martha Smith said it meant a lot to her and their children as well. “It means everything.”
DAVID MILES
Principal of Pizitz from 1991 to 2014, Miles still speaks glowingly of the school he routinely called “the best middle school in America.”
It isn’t just a trite phrase for Miles either. The longtime principal said Pizitz really is a unique place with a culture unlike any other. Reflecting on the accolades the school received during his tenure, including being named a National Blue Ribbon School, earning the highest standardized test scores in the state, and others, Miles quickly credits his staff and teachers more than himself, and said they worked to make Pizitz what it is today.
“It was a tremendous experience,” Miles said of his time at the middle school. “By far and away, my time at Pizitz was the pinnacle of my career.”
Miles came to Pizitz from Mountain Brook City Schools, where he began his career, but his family had lived in Vestavia before. He said as the school grew, it went from a really good school to a place where people wanted to be. Teachers, he said, would tell him that Pizitz was different.
“It doesn’t happen any place else like it happens here,” Miles recalled longtime choir director Brent Coleman saying.
Since retiring, Miles has been active in his church and has spent time with his grandchildren, but he also recently returned to the classroom, working as a substitute at the new Pizitz campus.
Pizitz, he said, is an ideal of “character, excellence and leadership.”
Being named to the inaugural Hall of Fame class is a tremendous honor, Miles said. “It’s pretty overwhelming,” he said. “I was pretty speechless.”
HELEN HOLLEY
In 1993, Helen Holley became the assistant principal of Vestavia Hills Elementary East. The educator had begun her career in South Dakota before coming to Alabama to continue her work in education.
Five years after joining Vestavia Hills City Schools, Holley became the first principal of Vestavia Hills Elementary Liberty Park, and, as she put it, she helped start the school “on the right track.”
“You have to think really hard, and do it the right way the first time,” Holley said. “You just have to double think everything.”
The school began as a preschool through sixth-grade school, before eventually serving kindergarten through fifth grade, as it does today.
“It was an incredible experience,” Holley said.
Holley said while at Vestavia, the importance of helping children — of keeping their needs first — was reinforced. “It was apparent every single day,” she said.
Reflecting on her time in Vestavia, Holley said the school system has always exemplified excellence and focused on continuous improvement.
She said it was an incredible honor to be part of the inaugural class of the Hall of Fame and said she stood on the “shoulders of others who showed me the way.
“It sort of takes my breath away,” Holley said.
KAY TIPTON
When Kay Tipton was teaching at Ensley, her alma mater, in the early 1970s, her cousin, state Sen. Jabo Waggoner, called and asked if she would interview for a job in the newly formed Vestavia Hills school system.
So, in 1971, in just the second year of the system, Tipton joined the staff at Vestavia Hills High School and stayed until 2007, becoming a well-known math teacher and successful math team coach.
“I have always, always liked math,” Tipton said.
Early on, she realized she needed more than regularly allotted class time with her team, and the Board of Education allowed her to meet with them before and after school.
“Being at Vestavia was a perfect place to be because the administration was very supportive,” Tipton said.
The school system always had fine students and supportive parents, she said.
“I would thank God in my prayers at night that he brought me to Vestavia Hills,” she said.
Over her more than 40 years teaching at Vestavia Hills High School, Tipton said experience made her a better teacher, and she learned how to better help her students. Her math teams, she said, became really good and routinely brought home trophies from state and national competitions.
Tipton is still helping young people learn math, doing test prep with students around the Birmingham area.
Tipton said when she was told she was part of the Hall of Fame’s inaugural class, she couldn’t hold back her tears. “I appreciate it so much.”