“Anna Simpson tried to teach me how to play golf,” Paula Kingsolver recalls. “(She insisted) there wasn’t a person alive she couldn’t teach. She finally had to admit defeat on this one and amend her statement to ‘There’s not a person alive I can’t teach to play golf except you, P Fry.’”
Those are the stories the people close to Anna Simpson will remember. She was a passionate and dedicated teacher who loved helping the children of Shelby County and loved golf. She coached the Shelby County High School golf program through the school split and helped set a foundation for what has become one of the best teams in the state. Simpson passed away Tuesday after a long bout with cancer.
“That tradition really developed under her watch. She was part of that and it still continues to this day,” current SCHS girls’ golf coach Derrick Griffitts said.
“She’s a big part of the success that our girls’ golf program has had over the years,” former SCHS Athletics Director Sally Zimmerman echoed. “She was so good at recruiting the younger kids to come out and play. She was a magnet for children. They just loved her.”
As passionate as Simpson was on the golf course, she was equally passionate in the classroom. Current Shelby County Parks Athletics Director Jonathan Carroll had Simpson as a teacher when he was in elementary school.
“I had just moved to Shelbyville. She was the teacher who made everything fun. She made you want to learn. I had her for science and a lot of kids hate that subject and think it’s boring. She made it the complete opposite,” he said. “No matter what she was going through or how hard her day had been, she always just made you want to learn in her classroom.”
“She taught my son, Noah, in second and fifth grade in the classroom but what she had to offer extended so far beyond the walls of school. She taught my boy how to swim and how to fish,” Kingsolver added.
Simpson loved Shelby County – both the high school and the community – and the county loved her back.
“We loved each other. She was there for me when my children were born. She stood up for herself and others,” Tracy Gayle, who taught at Wright Elementary with Simpson for 22 years, said. “She loved Shelby County. We would cheer like crazy at the Homecoming Parade – where she’d always wear her Class of ’89 shirt. She always had the most school spirit to the end… She was my school family.”
“She always stood up for what she believed was right and she stood up for the park. I always respected her so much for that,” Carroll said. “Everyone did because they knew she was going to stand up for what the park needed.”
For years Simpson roamed the SCHS football sidelines and other sports, taking pictures of the players for the school, their parents and even on occasion for The Sentinel-News.
“She just liked being a part of the community. She was always strong in the community,” Shelby County football coach Todd Shipley said. “What you hear about her as a teacher – the kids loved her. Her biggest thing was giving back to the community and teaching and coaching kids.”
For the people who loved her, describing Simpson is both a task so easy because of how much they can say, but becomes impossible for the same reason.
“She was bold, beautiful, brave, generous, kind, loyal, smart, talented and hilariously funny,” Kingsolver said. “I could go on for days and never exhaust the adjectives to describe the force that was Anna B. Simpson.”
As a teacher – and a coworker – Simpson made every day a new adventure. From karaoke, teaching her students the call and response in “Jack and Diane,” costumes and recreating Hee Haw skits, there was nothing Simpson wouldn’t do for her friends and students.
“Anna’s personality was huge but she had the heart to match it. She brought so much joy and entertainment to every child and adult she met,” Kingsolver said. “Once Anna called you her own, you knew that you were hers for life. That was true for all the students she taught, the athletes she coached and the friends she chose along the way.”
Simpson leaves behind a powerful legacy – partly in the Shelby County golf program, but more in the impact she had on anyone fortunate enough to know her.
“She was a fighter and she left a legacy of a fighter,” Zimmerman said. “Hopefully people can learn from her life and how to treat people.”
“She was so passionate and cared about kids,” Carroll added. “She was a true educator and if you looked up the definition of what a teacher should be, it should be a picture of her.”
“Her love and devotion to her family was immense and I know their grief is huge. But Anna would bring us laughter through our tears and would want to be remembered with far more joy than sorrow,” Kingsolver said. “Our school will never be the same without her but she lives on through the difference she made in each of us.”
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