Yardley says, “The Show Will Go On”
Billie Yardley – Staff Photo by Jacquelyn Muncy
For 36 years, Billie Yardley had a seamless and idealistic teaching career. She always had a very high enrollment in her theater classes, and her students were always respectful, energetic, and supportive. When she agreed to take control of the drama department in 1987, she built it from the ground up, starting only with an old stage from the Jefferson County High School football field and a former shop class classroom with tobacco growing out of the floor. Yardley assembled a multitude of supplies and resources, like computers, hundreds of scripts, and extremely rare and unique vintage costumes and props, and up until this year, she had all of this at her fingertips. As anyone would be, she was ill prepared for the unavoidable disaster Mother Nature wrought on Sunday, July 7th.
“I hope they’ll let me get my costumes and props,” was Yardley’s initial thought when she saw her destroyed classroom. Just a few hours earlier, she was shopping at a grocery store when she received a slew of text messages all saying the same thing-her classroom lay in ruins. Not fully comprehending how devastating the tragedy was, she rushed to the school to attempt to retrieve her irreplaceable materials, but it was to no avail. Her entire classroom was demolished by a rainstorm; accumulating over a foot of rainwater, the roof unavoidably collapsed. As she stared at the catastrophe before her, she came to realize her thirty-six years worth of items-DVDs, CDs, pictures, props, costumes, yearbooks-were all lost. “Just like we never existed,” Yardley said. Not a crying person, Yardley knew the “show had to go on.” So she salvaged what she could and, as always, held her head high as she moved forward.
Teaching was always second nature to Yardley. When she was a little girl she would take the handouts she received at school and take them home to play school with her friends. Humbly crediting one of her favorite teachers, Yardley stated she was a student of Thelma Gann’s for two years and she “learned at the feet of masters.” When asked her favorite aspect of teaching, Yardley said it was the productions. Seeing her students confident and stage ready brings her the greatest gratification. She said the goal was not necessarily to make her students actors or actresses, but to prepare them for any situation and bring them self-confidence. Working without a real auditorium, Yardley made the best of what she had available and she threw her heart into her students and the school.
Her hard work and dedication paid off. On November 12, Yardley was crowned on the Today Show as Kathie Lee and Hoda’s Teacher of the Year. As winner, Yardley will receive $10,000 worth of school products from the Today Show. She was “totally surprised and very humbled,” and she said she was “completely aware the reason she won was due to former student’s dedication.” When an unexpected Yardley heard she was nominated for Teacher of the Year, she was overwhelmed and grateful. “If it hadn’t been for Katie, Penny, and Susan Loveday this nomination or award would never have happened,” she said. For Yardley, just the nomination was enough; she never imagined she would win. She said, “Things like that just don’t happen in East Tennessee.”
But for a beloved teacher like Yardley, they do. In payment for her tremendous dedication, an entire community rallied around her to show her how much she is truly supported and adored. Even in the face of destruction, Yardley has hope. Her show will go on.
