Kay Tipton
Kay Waggoner Tipton (born October 7, 1944 in Indian Springs) is a former mathematics teacher at Vestavia Hills High School. She taught at the school from its establishment in 1970 to her retirement in 2007. Tipton founded the Vestavia Hills High School Math Team in 1975 and served as math department chair since 1989.
Tipton is one of three children born to Paul and Ruth Gravlee Waggoner, a teacher at Brown Elementary School. She grew up in Birmingham and graduated from Ensley High School and Samford University.
Her math teams consistently ranked among the best in the United States in national competitions such as Mu Alpha Theta and many of her students have qualified for the United States of America Mathematical Olympiad. The math team's entire senior class of 2005 also qualified for the AIME and nearly all of them became National Merit Finalists.
Tipton is a two-time winner of the Mathematical Association of America's "Distinguished High School Mathematics Teaching Edyth May Sliffe Award" (1991 & 1992), a three-time winner of the White House Commission of Presidential Scholars Distinguished Teacher Award, as well as recipient of both the Golden Apple Teacher of the Year Award and Cornell University's Outstanding High School Educator Award.
References
- "Kay Tipton" (December 15, 2007) Wikipedia - accessed May 19, 2008
- Embry, Neal (October 1, 2021) "Longtime Vestavia Hills High School Math Team leader Tipton honored" Vestavia Voice