Betty Bays Teague Trent

Betty Bays Teague Trent, beloved mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, passed away peacefully on September 16, 2026, after a brief illness. She was 91 years old.

A native of southwest Virginia, Ms. Trent was born in St. Paul on January 24, 1935, to Homer Jennings Bays and Martha Lawson Bays. The only daughter and youngest of four children, she grew up alongside three athletic brothers and became captain of the girls’ basketball team at St. Paul High School. Those early years instilled a lifelong love of sports, especially for her beloved Tennessee Volunteers football team and the Lady Vols women’s basketball team.

After graduating from high school in 1953, Ms. Trent moved to Kingsport, Tennessee, to work at Kingsport Press, then one of the world’s largest printers of the Holy Bible in English. Her work there included roles as a secretary, administrative assistant, and bookbinder. In 1954, she married John Leonard Teague with whom she had two children, Pam and Jeff. That marriage ended in 1968.

As a pioneering single mother in the 1960s and 1970s, Ms. Trent worked hard to ensure that Pam and Jeff, enjoyed the same opportunities as their friends and classmates, including music and dance lessons. A lifelong learner, she kept encyclopedias and other references books in the home and made education central to family life.

In the late 1960s, Ms. Trent became office manager for Appalachian Flying Service, a private jet service based at the Tri-Cities Regional Airport in northeast Tennessee. She later worked as a sales representative for the Jack Anderson Company, a Kingsport office equipment business, before becoming general manager of F. J. Brownell & Sons, a real estate appraisal company. She remained there until her retirement in 2000.

Ms. Trent brought the same energy and commitment to her community. She was a proud member of Epsilon Sigma Alpha International, a philanthropic sorority supporting St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and held multiple leadership positions, including State President.

She was a member of Colonial Heights Presbyterian Church for 67 years and became one of the first women in the congregation to serve as an ordained elder. A trailblazing feminist, she felt certain that women had the same capacity as men to read and interpret scripture and preach the gospel.

Her commitment to equality extended beyond the church. Politically active and a supporter of civil rights and LGBTQ rights, Ms. Trent volunteered for the Clinton-Gore presidential campaigns in 1992 and 1996, and the Gore 2000 Presidential campaign.

In 2003, she married Ray Trent who preceded her in death in 2018. She moved to Nashville the following year to live closer to her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

Affectionately known as “Miss Betty” to family and friends, Ms. Trent was charismatic, with a smile that brightened the room. She is described as remarkably strong, generous, vibrant, and the epitome of a true Southern grace and charm.

Her competitive spirit endured long after her basketball days, and she used games to teach her children to think strategically and critically. Her favorites included Scramble, rummy, bridge, cribbage, and backgammon. She also loved jigsaw puzzles depicting flora and fauna, though she saw little reason to spend time on anything with fewer than 1,000 pieces.

A voracious reader, Ms. Trent especially enjoyed historical fiction. And she relished vacation trips to the Carolina and Florida coasts. Her musical taste ranged from Elvis Presley and Dolly Parton to classical music and opera. On streaming television, she enjoyed BBC dramas. Every Christmas, she insisted on watching The Nutcrack and The Homecoming.

Through the years, her message to her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren remained the same: “Study hard. Your education is the only thing in life that no one can take away from you.”

Ms. Trent was preceded in death by her, parents, Homer Jennings Bays and Martha Lawson Bays, and her brothers, Donald Bays, Eulis Bays, and Chester Bays, and several nieces and nephews.

She is survived by her son, Jeffery Leonard Teague, and daughter, Pamela Teague Brown (Richard); two grandchildren, Jennifer Gailey (Bill), and Daniel Thacker (Regina); and three great-grandchildren, Madilyn Gailey, Easton Thacker, and Kason Thacker.

Ms. Trent will be remembered at memorial services for family and friends on October 29, 2026, at Christ Church Episcopal Cathedral in Nashville, and on October 31, 2026, at Colonial Heights Presbyterian Church in Kingsport. A private family interment will follow at Temple Hill in Castlewood, Virginia.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that memorial contributions be made to Colonial Heights Presbyterian Church.