‘Legacy of influence’: 5 more to be inducted into Vestavia Hills City Schools Hall of Fame as Class of 2023

The Vestavia Hills City Schools Hall of Fame plans to induct its fourth class on Jan. 29, and this time the Hall of Fame is going back to the district’s beginning.

The five inductees in the Class of 2023 are:

• Beverly Brasell, who served as an English, speech and drama teacher at Vestavia Hills High School from 1974 to 2007
• William “Bill” Clark, the first superintendent for Vestavia Hills City Schools, who served from 1970 to 1979 and is being inducted posthumously
• Jennifer Greer, a special education teacher at Pizitz Middle School and Vestavia Hills High School from 1996 to 2021
• Kym Prewitt, who served in multiple roles from 1987 to 2023, including as an English and youth leadership teacher at Vestavia Hills High School and a Board of Education member
• Jim Williams, who served as principal at Vestavia Hills Elementary East from 1981 to 1999

The inductees were chosen from a field of nominees submitted earlier this year by alumni, current and former school employees and the community at large. More than 140 nominations have been received since the start of the Hall of Fame initiative in 2020.

Previous inductees included Buddy Anderson, Helen Holley, David Miles, Carlton Smith and Kay Tipton in 2020; Sammy Dunn, Barbara Grant, Michael Gross, Rick McKay and John Rush in 2021; and Kelly Bagby, Brian Cain, Karen DeLano, Kimberly McBride and Audrey Pharo in 2022.

“The Class of 2023 continues the remarkable legacy of influence that is characteristic of the previous inductees into the Vestavia Hills City Schools Hall of Fame,” Superintendent Todd Freeman said. “They each exemplified a model of excellence that is the standard of educators in Vestavia Hills.”

Anyone in the community can nominate people, and the inductees are chosen by a community group based on their demonstrated commitment to the mission and values of the city’s schools and community, according to Whit McGhee, the director of public relations for the school system and coordinator of the Hall of Fame committee.

This year’s group of inductees have 105 combined years of service at various levels of teaching, supporting or leading students and the school system, McGhee said.

“Vestavia Hills has long believed that the schools are the crown jewel of the community, and it’s people like these inductees who have cemented that reputation and legacy,” he said.

The Class of 2023 will be honored at an induction ceremony at the Vestavia Hills Civic Center at 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 29. The event is open to the public.

Here is more information about each of this year’s inductees.

BEVERLY BRASELL

Brasell, who taught speech and theater at Vestavia Hills High School for 32 years, fell in love with theater when she was in high school in the Mobile area, but her mother didn’t see a future in theater and convinced her to become an English major when she went to the University of Montevallo.

Nevertheless, Brasell kept theater as her minor and got the lead role in a play called “The Male Animal” during her freshman year. After that, she decided to double major in English and theater. She did student teaching at Shades Valley High School and was hired to teach there with her mentor for three years. She then spent a year at Berry High School before going to the University of Tennessee for two years to get a master’s degree in speech and theater.

After finishing there, she was on her way back to Mobile when she stopped to visit her mentor at a school in Alabaster and heard that Vestavia Hills High School was looking for a theater teacher. She drove back to Vestavia Hills and was quickly offered the job by Principal Johnny Howell and Superintendent Bill Clark in 1974, she said.

She stayed there for 32 years before retiring in 2007.

“I loved every minute of what I did. It was a pure joy,” Brasell said.

Brasell served as chairwoman of the fine arts department for most of her tenure and was described by a colleague as “a force” in the school.

“She held extremely high standards, and her work was an example of these standards,” the colleague said in a nomination letter for the Hall of Fame. “Her level of respect from her students and coworkers was second to none. She would say jump, and everyone said how high. She found the strength in every student and pushed them to achieve more. She developed a very strong theater tech program, and the students ran the theater and shows like professionals. Many of her acting and theater students went on to major in and have careers in theater. They have performed all over the world.”

Brasell’s plays and musicals were always of professional quality, and she was a mentor to many teachers, helping them develop leadership and organizational skills and teaching them how to deal with difficult parents, the nominator said.

“Students that come back for reunions and visits always ask about her and comment on how much they learned from her,” the nominator wrote. “The work ethic and pride in work that she instilled in her students and coworkers will stay with them forever.”

Two of Brasell’s former students are theater teachers at universities in Indiana and Illinois. And while she has many students who became performers, she still hears from others who went into all types of occupations, she said.

“I never felt like I was training them to be performers,” Brasell said. “I was training them for life.”

Brasell said she tried to instill in her students that there is no unimportant job and that everyone is an important part of the team. “The nature of a job lies not in what we do but in how we do it.”

She remembers a particular production of “Miracle Worker” in the early 1980s, in which her production crew created a makeshift water pump on stage so the actors could pretend they were pumping water. In reality, there were crew members outside the building using a wrench to turn a water faucet on and off when signaled through a headset, she said.

“People didn’t see them, but it was so important to the production,” she said.

Brasell frequently was asked what her favorite show was, and she always told her students “the one I’m working on now,” she said. She tried to teach her students to live in the current moment and make the most of it, she said.

“Theaters are ephemeral,” Brasell said. “When the curtain goes down, it [the show] no longer exists. You can’t go back in time. … All we have is the moment right now.”

After retiring, Brasell did plays and literary readings for about 10 years with a senior adult theater troupe called The Seasoned Performers, which became part of Red Mountain Theatre. She quit doing that around 2016 but still does literary readings in the Birmingham area.

Brasell got married for the first time about seven years ago, marrying Joseph Slane, who is a retired minister from Southminster Presbyterian Church, and she now lives in Hoover and is a coordinator for Contemplative Outreach Birmingham, a nonprofit that supports centering prayer groups.

Brasell said she’s always surprised to hear from her former students, but they often tell her how much she taught them, and it’s wonderful. “They gave me more than I ever thought about giving them.”

WILLIAM ‘BILL’ CLARK

Clark was the first superintendent hired to lead Vestavia City Schools and was well into his career when Vestavia Hills plucked him away from Bessemer.

He grew up in Falkville and played both football and baseball at Falkville High School and Jacksonville State Teachers College. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and got his start in education as a teacher and football coach at Bessemer High School in 1950. He went on to become principal at the school, then assistant superintendent and superintendent for Bessemer City Schools.

Clark applied for the Vestavia Hills superintendent job when the system was formed, was hired in 1970 and stayed until he retired in 1979.

“Everybody wanted to be part of Vestavia at that time,” his wife, Ann Clark, said. “He was able to hire all the very best people.”

When the Vestavia school system began, it started with just two schools acquired from Jefferson County— an elementary school, now Vestavia Hills Elementary East, and Vestavia Hills Junior High School, which served as a high school with grades 7-12 for a couple years until a new high school could be built.

Clark oversaw construction of the new Vestavia Hills High School, the renaming of the first high school as Pizitz Middle School and construction of Vestavia Hills Elementary West. He also was instrumental in hiring a lot of people who would shape the system for decades.

“He had a vision, and he had the wisdom to choose and employ men and women able to make his vision a reality,” said an employee who nominated Clark for the Hall of Fame, in a nomination letter. “When I was employed five years later, the system already had a reputation for being student-centered and a place that fostered academic excellence. From the individuals working directly under his supervision, it was said that he gave a task and then allowed them to complete it without interference. Considering the achievements and successes in every area of the VHCS, one must appreciate the vision of William Clark.”

Clark hired Buddy Anderson as a math teacher and assistant football coach in the spring of 1972, and Anderson went on to become the winningest high school football coach in Alabama. Clark also hired Sammy Dunn as a baseball coach, and Dunn won 11 state championships and a national championship. Both Anderson and Dunn also are in the Vestavia Hills City Schools Hall of Fame.

Anderson said Clark was a great leader who was firm but fair.

“He saw this school system through the early years of struggle but kept a firm hand, kept everything moving in the right direction,” Anderson said.

When the school system first started, it didn’t have a lot of money or resources, but Clark “made it work on a shoestring,” Anderson said.

He did his best to hire good people and trusted them in turn to hire other good people, which laid the foundation for a great school system, Anderson said. “Our system wouldn’t be what it is today without Bill Clark.”

Ann Clark said her husband, who died at age 92 in 2019, was pleased with all the departments in every school, but especially the math and athletic programs. He would have been so honored to be in the Hall of Fame, and she is most pleased that he is being honored and remembered after such a long time, she said.

JENNIFER GREER

Greer taught special education for 27 years before retiring in 2021.

After graduating from Troy State University, she spent her first two years at the Highland Horizons School before coming to Pizitz Middle School in 1996. She spent 21 years at Pizitz and four at Vestavia Hills High School.

At first, she didn’t want to be assigned at a center for students with disabilities, but after just two weeks working at the center, it was a young girl with Down syndrome, who Greer taught how to push herself on a swing, that changed her mind. She saw the joy in the little girl and knew then she wanted to work the rest of her life with students who have unique challenges, abilities and talents, she said.

People often praise the work she did with students, but “I feel like they taught me so much more than I taught them,” Greer said.

The students changed her perspective on life, teaching her how to react to different challenges with a positive attitude and to declutter, slow down and appreciate every moment in life, she said.

Greer said she devoted her entire career to making schools and communities in general more inclusive for people with unique challenges. When she started, her students were isolated all day in a separate classroom and had little to no interaction with their peers, which made her sad, she said.

She got permission from the school administration and other teachers to slowly introduce her students into the general school population, going to physical education and lunch with other students and later into other elective classes and activities, she said.

She started a Pizitz Pirate Partner program, pairing students with special needs with other students in the school. She also gave professional development to teachers on how to work with students with special needs and taught other students about the various disabilities their classmates had, trying to show them that they have more things alike than different, she said.

“I just feel that knowledge is power,” Greer said. “My main goal was to get students out and among their classmates as much as possible.”

Now, all students get to be around other students at least one to two hours per day, she said.

For many years, there was no program for students with multiple disabilities at the high school, Greer said. Those students remained

at Pizitz Middle School regardless of their age and didn’t get to move on to high school with their peers, she said.

She helped push for a similar program at the high school and later moved on to the high school to spend her last four years in the system there.

Greer also was a Special Olympics coach for middle and high school students, cheerleading sponsor and Student Government Association sponsor at Pizitz, as well as being assistant coach for flag football teams made up of special needs and general education students that went to the state playoffs twice.

When she retired, she started working as director of the Post Place campus for Unless U, a nonprofit that fosters the growth of adults with disabilities academically, spiritually, physically, socially and vocationally. Her main focus is teaching life skills and social skills, and she has seen many of them move on to live productive lives, she said.

She still keeps in touch with students she taught over the years and still considers them her “babies,” no matter their age, she said.

A person who nominated her for the Hall of Fame said in a nomination letter that Greer was unmatched in terms of the lasting impact her work had on the lives of people with disabilities.

“Families have been impacted on a level that means the world to them,” the nominator wrote. “Mrs. Greer was awesome — one of the most selfless and kind-hearted people I’ve ever had the privilege of meeting. Her passion for her students was amazing and inspiring.”

KYM PREWITT

Prewitt has a long history with the Vestavia Hills school system.

She became a student at Vestavia Hills Elementary East in 1971, when she was in the second grade and the school system had been around for just one year.

She graduated from Vestavia Hills High School in 1982 and, after graduating from Auburn University, got her first job as an English teacher back at her alma mater in 1987. It was intimidating at first to teach alongside people who had been her teachers, she said, but she did it for eight years.

In 1995, she left the teaching profession to raise three children, but she certainly didn’t quit working. Prewitt’s volunteer experience would fill up the high school’s “Reveille” yearbook.

In the 20 years after leaving the high school, she served on more than 30 national, state and local boards and was president or chairwoman of 10 of them. She also was chairwoman for at least 65 philanthropic events for education, literacy and educational scholarships.

Prewitt founded the Children’s Literacy Guild of Alabama, a nonprofit that supports another literacy nonprofit called Better Basics, and served as the guild’s executive director from 2005 to 2012.

She served with PTA and PTO groups from 2000 to 2011 and was the PTA Council president from 2008 to 2011. She led the change from PTA groups to PTO groups, which saved local PTOs $10,000 a year. She also served on the Alabama State PTA board of directors in the 2008-09 school year.

Prewitt served on the Vestavia Hills City Schools Foundation board from 2001 to 2005 and served as vice president and chairwoman of many committees. She also served on the Vestavia Hills Board of Education from 2010 to 2015, including stints as president and vice president and leading the effort for a new superintendent search.

Prewitt was chairwoman of The Governor’s Literacy Summit in the summers of 2004 and 2005 and was on the executive committee for the Alabama Center for the Book. She served on the Governor’s Congress on School Leadership, A+ Education Foundation board of directors, Literacy Council of Central Alabama board of directors, Governor’s Commission on Quality Teaching, Alabama Reading Leadership Team, Alabama Humanities Foundation, Auburn University College of Education’s National Advisory Council, Alabama Book Festival Committee, state textbook committee, Vestavia Hills Chamber of Commerce board of directors and Vestavia Hills Library in the Forest board of directors.

One of her most enduring accomplishments was the creation of the Youth Leadership Vestavia Hills program in 2005, which aims to help young people grow into leaders and better citizens.

Prewitt led the program outside of the school system at first, but in 2016 she was hired by the school system on a part-time basis to bring it into the schools, returning to the classroom for the past seven years before leaving her teaching job this past May.

She just became a grandmother and wants to spend more time with her family and church and help her mother with her family business, Prewitt said.

Prewitt created the Help the Hills organization, which aims to promote healthy living and curb substance abuse, a New Student Committee to help welcome new students and the RISE service learning project, which has raised $820,000 for various organizations in four years and engaged thousands of students and community members.

The Youth Leadership Vestavia Hills group in 2012 named Prewitt its Citizen of the Year, and she won the John Glasser Service to Literacy Award in 2006 and was nominated by the Childcare Resource Center for its Child Advocate Award in 2006.

Prewitt said it takes a team effort to help young people develop into stronger citizens, and she got involved because of her love for the city of Vestavia Hills.

“My whole life, it’s been such a gift to be able to do what I do,” she said. “Some people consider it work. I consider it an opportunity and a blessing.”

JIM WILLIAMS

Williams served as principal at Vestavia Hills Elementary East for 18 years.

He still remembers the day he got hired because it’s the same day his youngest son was born — July 9, 1981. He was lying on the floor of St. Vincent’s Hospital when the superintendent called and offered him the job, he said.

Williams is a native of Birmingham and graduated from Phillips High School, where he was a quarterback, in 1965. He was a walk-on football player at Auburn University, playing for Coach Ralph “Shug” Jordan and defensive back coach Bill Oliver. But Williams said he was more like a “carry me off” player than a “walk-on” player because he remembers breaking his nose and getting two or three concussions.

He got a degree in physical education and got his first coaching job at Phillips High School. He stayed one year and got offered a better job at Woodlawn High School, where he taught American history and coached from 1970 to 1974. Williams decided to go to law school at night and took a less demanding physical education job at Wright Elementary School. He then was offered a coaching job at Banks High School and coached two football seasons before deciding to go to graduate school to get an administrative certificate. 

He coached physical education at Barrett Elementary School in Birmingham for one year before being hired as the boys advisor and assistant principal at Huffman High School. Williams stayed there for two years and then served as principal at Wright Elementary School for two years before being offered the principal job at Vestavia Hills Elementary East.

The school was packed with 800 K-5 students and had portable classrooms for three years until Vestavia Hills Elementary Central opened as a school for students in grades 4-5, Williams said.

A former bookkeeper who worked for Williams at Vestavia Hills Elementary East nominated him for the Hall of Fame.

“I worked for and with many wonderful employees during my tenure with Vestavia Hills, and Jim Williams was the most kind and caring,” the bookkeeper wrote in a nomination letter. “Jim’s commitment to the students, parents and staff were exemplary. There are so many examples of his caring nature that I could give.”

Williams said he has many wonderful memories from his time at Vestavia Hills Elementary East.

“The children were wonderful. I couldn’t have asked for better teachers. I had the most wonderful staff,” he said. “I had the most wonderful PTA parents. If I wanted something, all I had to do was ask.”

He particularly remembers all the fun Halloween carnivals the school had, he said. He always dressed up, including costumes such as Superman, Batman and Gumby, he said. One year, his whole family dressed up like the Flintstones and came to the carnival in a limousine.

The carnivals raised a ton of money, Williams said. They could generate $25,000 in two hours, he said. The parents in Vestavia Hills were committed to the schools and always came up with money for wanted items, whether in the classroom, gym or elsewhere, he said.

“Money was no object,” he said. “If the kids needed it, they would get it. … Our teachers — they didn’t go without.”

Williams also was known for his comical ties with cartoon characters and holiday themes, which the kids loved. He had 75 wacky ties, and he wore one every day, he said. He still has those ties to this day, he said.

Williams said he is amazed how many Vestavia Hills students come back to live in the city and raise their own children there, including his youngest son. He has two grandchildren at Vestavia Hills Elementary West, he said. “They love it in Vestavia Hills,” he said. “It’s a special place.”

He’s honored to be inducted into the Hall of Fame but said his wife, Mary — who died four years ago — deserves to be in the Hall of Fame more than he does. She taught in Vestavia Hills for 50 years, including three years before the school system was formed, he said. She spent 30 years as a fourth grade teacher and the last 20 as an academic support teacher.

Nominations for the 2024 class of the Vestavia Hills City Schools Hall of Fame can be made at vhcs.us/halloffame after this year’s ceremony on Jan. 29.