Metro Roundup: Five inductees for Vestavia Hills City Schools Hall of Fame

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The third class of the Vestavia Hills City Schools Hall of Fame includes teachers, an administrator and a beloved custodian.

The five inductees are:

  • Kelly Bagby: special education teacher at Vestavia Hills Elementary Central, Vestavia Hills Elementary Dolly Ridge and Vestavia Hills Elementary Liberty Park from 2000 to 2022
  • Brian Cain: math and psychology teacher at Vestavia Hills High School from 1989 to 2002
  • Karen DeLano: assistant superintendent of Vestavia Hills City Schools from 2000 to 2012
  • Kimberly McBride: custodian at Liberty Park Middle School from 2008 to 2021, who will be inducted posthumously
  • Audrey Pharo: kindergarten teacher at Vestavia Hills Elementary West from 1977 to 2008

This year’s class joins Buddy Anderson, Helen Holley, David Miles, Carlton Smith, Kay Tipton, Sammy Dunn, Barbara Grant, Michael Gross, Rick McKay and John Rush from previous year’s classes.

Audrey Pharo 

Audrey Pharo began teaching while she was still in high school. While she was participating in baton twirling, she began teaching other students in Vestal, New York.

She later taught arts and crafts, along with other activities, as a recreation supervisor in her hometown.

“I always did it with goofy things,” Pharo said.

Pharo married a “Southern gentleman” and moved to Birmingham after 10 years of teaching in New York. She then began teaching in the Vestavia school system.

In her kindergarten classes at West, she had a sign: “I may not be perfect but I am forever creative.” Pharo would throw all of the construction paper into the middle of the floor and no student was ever considered the best or made to follow specific patterns.

“Nobody ever competed in my room,” Pharo said. “I couldn’t stand where teachers would do everything within the lines. … I just tried to relate the difference of artwork and the difference of children.”

Pharo “did crazy things,” she said, including moving a bathtub into her room where students could read. She always had mannequins and would dress them. Students would tattle on other students to the mannequin and the mannequin would “tell Ms. Pharo,” she said.

“I guess I stayed in kindergarten my whole life because that was the level I was at,” Pharo said with a laugh.

Years later, parents and students still remember her and write to her, Pharo said, due to the impact she made.

“They know I love their children,” Pharo said. “I’ll never forget my kids.”

Even now, at the age of 81, Pharo is still teaching, homeschooling and tutoring.

“I don’t think I’ll ever retire,” Pharo said.

Kelly Bagby

Kelly Bagby said she was “shocked” when she got the phone call that she would be inducted into the school system’s Hall of Fame.

She said it was an honor to be included with “legends” of the system.

“I feel like I’m standing on the porch knocking, saying, ‘Are you sure I can come?’” Bagby said.

Bagby worked at the University of Montevallo, her alma mater, before joining Vestavia Hills Elementary Liberty Park in 2000. She ended up working at Vestavia Hills Elementary Central and Vestavia Hills Elementary Dolly Ridge before retiring at the end of last school year.

Working with students who have special needs made her feel at home.

“This is where I belong,” Bagby said. “These are my people.”

Bagby said God gave her “specific gifts” she was able to use to help students. She credited the school system, parents and teachers with supporting her and allowing her to do her job well.

“To be entrusted with someone else’s child … is not something to be taken lightly,” Bagby said. “The system gave me a chance to impact lives and help them [the students] succeed.”

Building a relationship with families was key to her work, she said.

“We all have to be on the same page and we all have to be headed in the same direction,” Bagby said.

Bagby said she remembers a fire drill taking place and having to walk up a big hill with students. Even then, she told a colleague, “I would rather be here than anywhere else in the world.”

Much changed in the education field during her 22 years with Vestavia, but the importance of putting the child first did not, she said.

“If it’s what the child needs, that’s what we’re going to do,” Bagby said.

Brian Cain 

In 1989, Brian Cain admits he was still “very green” when he began teaching math and psychology at Vestavia Hills High School.

When he got the job, he called his mom, who was crying and excited for her son. He had done his student teaching at Vestavia and had previously wanted to be a counselor before moving into education.

While math was never his favorite subject, he was always good at it, he said. He remembered thinking, “Why do we make this so hard?” as he prepared to teach students.

Other teachers throughout the school helped show him how to teach, how to make lesson plans and more. So, as his career progressed, he paid it forward and worked with students and new teachers to help them grow. He called his time working with the high school faculty the “richest development” he ever had.

Being a part of the Vestavia school system was never just about academics, he said. It was a “devoted family atmosphere” of every person on the staff. From the principal to the lunchroom staff, everyone was loved and celebrated, he said.

Cain went on to become an administrator in the Hoover school system and spent his last 12 years there as principal at Simmons Middle School. Even though he has left teaching on a full-time basis, the work of helping students grow and succeed never ends, he said.

“If you ever leave the classroom, never leave your students,” Cain said.

Kim McBride

Kim McBride was known for the smiles she often gave others.

“Every day … you could count on her for a smile,” said Jack Cobb, a student at Liberty Park Middle School, in 2021.

Each day for 13 years, McBride came to work and put a smile on the face of her coworkers and students.

McBride, a beloved custodian at LPMS, died in a car accident in February 2021, leaving behind two children, Jacobi and Ryan.

It did not matter to McBride who walked through the front doors of Liberty Park Middle School, whether it was a student, a parent or the superintendent, her coworkers previously said.

“She could be friends with anybody,” said Alison Noble, a teacher and co-sponsor of the SGA at the school. “She was just a special person.”

McBride’s sister, Monica Lee, said in 2021 that McBride loved her job and would “give people her last.”

“She was a beautiful person inside and out,” Lee said. “She was just a blessing.”

Each school year since McBride’s passing, LPMS awards the “Kim McBride Sunshine Award” to an eighth grade student who exhibits the characteristics for which McBride was known: friendly with all people, inclusive to all groups, a “daily ray” of sunshine and positivity, respectful and a conversation starter.

Lee said to hear her sister was being inducted into the school system’s Hall of Fame was a “great honor.”

“She left a legacy,” Lee said. “She shared her gift. Her gift was love and talking to those kids.”

Lee said she was “overwhelmed” when she learned the news of her sister’s upcoming honor.

“She meant the world to a lot of people,” she said. “They’re still talking about my sister. That means the world to me.”

Karen DeLano

Both of Karen DeLano’s parents were teachers, setting the stage for her to follow in their footsteps.

At first, however, she resisted. She pursued medical school, but changed during her sophomore year of college. Forty-six years later, DeLano is now retired from a lifetime in education.

She came to Vestavia Hills after serving as the principal at Shades Cahaba Elementary in Homewood, and after leaving Vestavia, retired as the superintendent of Auburn City Schools.

“I feel like it [education] found me,” DeLano said.

Working in Vestavia was a challenge because of the high expectations set on everybody within the school system, DeLano said.

“It was challenging work in a very good way,” DeLano said. “I learned quite a bit from the people that I worked with.”

In her role as an administrator, DeLano said the most important job she had was hiring the right kind of people to work in the school system.

“I really felt inspired when I would interview and hire really good people who would do great things for kids,” DeLano said.

DeLano credited mentors throughout her life as helping her in her career.

“When you’re lucky enough to have that happen, it’s your responsibility to pay that forward,” DeLano said.

Being included in this year’s Hall of Fame class is such an honor in a system like Vestavia’s, which has had so many people build the system to what it is today, she said.

“I felt like I just stood on that foundation,” DeLano said. “I probably received more than I probably gave.”

The Hall of Fame ceremony will take place on Monday, Jan. 30 at 6:30 p.m. at Louis Pizitz Middle School. The event is free and open to the public.