Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Amy Gay-Biggs is exactly where she has long wanted to be in her life — at S.P. Morton Elementary School serving as a physical education teacher. She knows the place well, having been born in Franklin and having attended the city’s schools. Her own daughter, Chandler Turner, is a junior at Franklin High School.

At FHS, Gay-Biggs was a member of the school band and also played on the girls’ basketball and volleyball teams. In track and field events, her performances in the shot put and discus throw broke district and regional records. The team qualified for state-level competition for three years in a row. She was named Most Valuable Player for two years in girls’ track. During her senior year — 1995 — Gay-Biggs received the Bronkette Award.

Following graduation, Gay-Biggs majored in physical education at Christopher Newport University and was a member of CNU’s track team, for which she threw the discus and hammer. She was named All-American in Division 3 in 1998 for hammer throw.

“I’ve always wanted to be an elementary P.E. teacher; I just wasn’t ready upon graduation, and that’s why I went to International Paper to work for 10 years,” Gay-Biggs said. 

For six of those years she stayed active in athletics, including coaching basketball at the YMCA.

Gay-Biggs returned to school, earned a master’s degree in business management and graduated with a 4.0 grade-point average in 2019 from Strayer University.

As stated earlier, being at SPM is her dream job.

“I love working with the students,” Gay-Biggs said. “They make coming to work fun, not a job.”

When not at the school, Gay-Biggs coaches varsity volleyball, which she has done for two years, and junior varsity softball at FHS. Her hobbies include camping, landscaping and working out.