The annual Halls High Alumni Banquet will be Saturday, April 30, at the high school cafeteria. It is a covered dish dinner and all alumni are invited. The doors will open at 5 p.m. and the food line will open at 6 p.m.
The alumni association will recognize two Hall of Fame inductees and will give a $1,500 scholarship to a Halls High senior. The Halls High Jazz Band will provide entertainment. Info: Chris Vandergriff, 865-924-4600.
Kathy Williams Southall
Kathy Williams Southall is a 1977 Halls High graduate and an engineer.
She vividly remembers watching Neil Armstrong make his “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” moon landing. Those television images left a lasting impression on a 10-year-old girl and led to a career in aerospace.
She graduated from the University of Tennessee with two bachelor’s degrees: political science and mechanical engineering. She then earned a master’s in engineering management from the University of Alabama Huntsville.
As an engineer, she began working in Huntsville, Alabama, for NASA as a contractor and later as a civil servant where she was assigned to be on the Challenger Redesign Team and then helped to develop the International Space Station (ISS) at the Marshall Space Flight Center where she worked in the Project Office.
One of her accomplishments was taking scuba diving lessons and wearing a space suit underwater in the neutral buoyancy tank in a series of underwater simulations to ensure astronauts would have room to make repairs on the ISS. From working in the ISS Project Office, she moved to the Washington, D.C., area where she worked at the headquarters as the Project Integration Manager for the ISS Work Package One.
All those pieces have to work together and they’re all built in different countries. So, you can imagine the complexity of trying to fit them all together when they connect in space. The construction of the Space Station was a collaboration of thousands of people, hundreds of companies, and many nations including the United States, Russia, Canada, Japan, Germany, France and the United Kingdom.
Kathy Southall is a life member of Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society and also has taught math at the community college level for several years.
Jay Hooper
Joshua C. “Jay” Hooper is a 1971 Halls High graduate. Jay joined the Army in 1972 and served for 28 years. Throughout his career, he served as a mentor and leader of soldiers to ensure they were able to meet their goals.
He spent the first 17 years in the 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He started as a Spec 5 (E5) and was promoted through the ranks to first sergeant (E8). He earned his master parachutist badge (jumpmaster).
The Army saw Jay’s potential and sent him to the Sergeants Major Academy in Fort Bliss, Texas. After completion, he was promoted to command sergeant major and stationed in Bamberg, Germany. While there, he was deployed to Saudi Arabia for Operation Desert Storm.
Later, he was selected to serve as the ordnance corps regimental command sergeant major in Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. This position is the highest enlisted soldier position available in the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps. He retired in 1999. The ordnance corps inducted him into their “Hall of Fame” in 2001. After his military retirement, he continued to serve as a defense contractor and later a civil servant until retirement in 2012 and returning to Tennessee.