Bret Smith, 40, Pleasant View, TN, died Saturday, June 6, 2009, at Melton Hill Lake near Knoxville.Visitation will be from 4 to 7 p.m. Thursday and from 2 to 5 p.m. Friday at Neal-Tarpley Funeral Home.
He taught mathematics and coached an award-winning tennis team at Clarksville Academy. He lived at Weakley’s Field in Pleasant View, TN, with his wife, Alex, and children Georgia, 9, and Elvis, 6.
He was born Jan. 4, 1969, in Nashville, the son of Starlene Pigue Sykes and Judge Charles W. Smith. Bret moved to Clarksville at age 3, just before the birth of his sister, Stacy Smith Leiser.
Bret attended Barksdale Elementary through the fourth grade, and was a student at Clarksville Academy from fifth grade through his graduation in 1987. While at the Academy, Bret excelled in tennis, played football, and was president of the Key Club, acted in the senior play, and was a drummer for the band Vanilla Thunder. He received numerous awards, including several Senior Superlative designations, the Kiwanis Club scholarship, and the Headmaster’s Award.
Bret earned a BS degree in computer science at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, where he was a member of the water ski team and an accomplished jet skier. Upon graduation, he set out with his dad and sister on a cross-country motorcycle trip. Along the way, in the Badlands of South Dakota, he met his future wife Dr. Alex Childs, who had just completed her Psy.D. and was making a solo motorcycle trip to California, a trip they finished together.
Bret completed his first solo plane flight in 1996. He and Alex married in 1997, and moved to Cumberland, RI, where Bret worked for CVS Pharmacy’s national headquarters. He renovated a 200-year-old farmhouse, and with the help of family and friends, constructed a barn in which he built his seaplane, Streaker.
Several years later, he decided to enter the field of education. He left his corporate job and completed his teacher certification at Providence College.
With dreams of having his own airstrip and working at Clarksville Academy, Bret and his family moved to Pleasant View, TN, in 2006. The four squeezed into a long-abandoned trailer while building their home in a neighborhood of pilots who share a runway.
Bret loved people, loved animals, and lived his life with enthusiasm, creativity, and intensity. He relished having his family and friends around him, and entertained in a way that only Bret could: with bonfires, potato guns, songs played on his harmonica with friends, stories shared around his dinner table, boating, fishing, swimming, fireworks, and plays performed by his children in the attic theater he built for them. Bret was a certified teacher, licensed pilot, motorcyclist, published author, award-winning coach, musician, and loving husband, father and friend.
Alex has a thriving psychology practice on Public Square in Clarksville, and Georgia and Elvis are students at Clarksville Academy. Bret was thrilled with his transition from the corporate world to teaching, and looked forward to a long career shaping young lives in the classroom as well as in the athletic arena. He touched the hearts of all who knew him, and served as a beautiful example of a life well lived.
He is survived by his wife, Alexandra Childs Smith; daughter Georgia; son Elvis; mother Starlene Pigue Sykes (Joe); father Charles Walter Smith (Cindy Podurgal Chambers); sister Stacy Smith Leiser (Jeff); Lindsay Chambers (Paul Springer) and Katie Chambers and hundreds of friends and family members, including pilots, fellow teachers, coaches, musicians, motorcycle riders and classmates.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made at F&M Bank, attention Frazier Allen for the Bret Smith Endowment Fund, address 50 Franklin St. Clarksville, Tenn. 37040, or to the Clarksville Humane Society, Bret Smith Memorial Fund, PO Box 571, Clarksville, Tenn. 37040.