Edna Clay

Edna Clay, cofounder and president of the Mid-South Institute of Neuro Linguistic Programming was born and raised in California. She attended the University of the Pacific where she received her Bachelors Degree in Elementary Education, and then taught second grade in Bakersfield.

Following her marriage in 1954 to Clinton Clay, she moved to Alabama and taught school in the Gadsden School System. The Clays were to make a number of moves during the next few years as Clinton competed his MSW and advanced through transfers and promotions. Edna continued teaching schools, directing church choirs and doing volunteer work.

She taught in elementary schools in Jacksonville, Florida; Andalusia, Alabama, and Montgomery, Alabama, and was given a contract to teach in Decatur, Alabama, only to have plans changed by the adoption of their first child. The next several years were spent in caring their two children, doing volunteer work and in directing church choirs. She began singing in the Huntsville Community Chorus in 1967, while still living in Decatur, and has continued active in that organization through the years, having been elected to the Board of Directors and serving two terms as president. She continues to sing in the alto section and has chaired the long range music planning committee for a number of years.

She became interested in NLP in 1984 upon accompanying Clint to a seminar offered by the Southern Institute of NLP. The featured speakers were Linda Sommers and Joseph Yeager of the New Jersey Institute of NLP. Linda shared her experience of using NLP in the classroom as an elementary teacher and later of the benefits of rapport skills as she and Joe worked with business corporations. Until then Edna had been impressed with Clint's enthusiastic reports of his work with clients and had believed that NLP was therapy tool and had seen no value for NLP in teaching. In 1985 she attended the practitioner training program at the University of London, in England. This was the first of the Trainings offered in Europe by Ed and Mary Ann Reese.

Edna subsequently got her Master practitioner certification and her NLP Trainer Certification through the Reeses' International NLP training, having participated in training programs offered in Zermat, Switzerland and Titesee, Germany. She also studied extensively with Robert Dilts and Todd Epstein at the NLPU in Santa Cruz, CA. s well as participating in training programs that the Mid South Institute of NLP was sponsoring in Huntsville. These included weekend workshops conducted by Ed Reese, Mary Ann Reese, Carol Erickson, Connie Rae Andreas, Robert DIlts, Todd Epstein, Tim Halbom, Francis Wiggins, William O'Hanlon, Paul Sheely, and others.

In 1993-94 Edna completed the NLP in Health training offered by Robert Dilts, Tim Halbom and Suzi Smith in Salt Lake City, Utah. She continue participating in the annual training over the next several years, serving as a coach and then as head coach. She was active in the organization of IASH, Institute for the Advanced Studies in Health. She was an avid advocate for the biennial conferences of IASH and being a recognized organizer and accomplisher, she served on the planning and program committee and was instrumental in contracting with hotels for conferenced, chairing committees and other crucial issues that made the conferences a success.

Upon completing her practitioner training in London, Edna contributed her services to the community and the State of Alabama in offering training programs on rapport skills, interviewing techniques, resources for teachers and educators, training of volunteer groups in better carrying out their responsibilities. She taught seminars for the state nurses association, the Vocational Rehabilitation Services, the American Guild of English Handbell Ringers and was ever responding to requests from schools, PTAs, local agencies, for several church programs. etc to teach some aspect of NLP. She volunteered at the local center for children with learning disabilities, worked with Cerebral Palsy volunteers and made a significant contribution to the training of CAJA volunteers. (court appointed juvenile advocates). In the early 1990s a Family Court Judge in Huntsville was greatly concerned about the sparsity of services to attend to the needs of juveniles who were coming through the court system. Being a friend of the Clays, he asked Clinton and Edna to present training to a group of volunteers he had recruited to serve as court advocates for the youth, each volunteer was to work extensively with one juvenile assigned to him/her. The program was a success and Edna continued to be one of the primary trainers over the next several years.

For more information visit: NLPHhypnosis-MidSouthInst.com.