Avery Elizabeth Pettway, Dr. Wayne Tipps crowned Cotton Ball royalty in Chattanooga

Sunday, August 11, 2013

photo Avery Pettway and Dr. Wayne Tipps were revealed as queen and king of the 79th Chattanooga Cotton Ball during the annual debutante ball Aug. 3 at the Chattanooga Convention Center. Train bearers Cecilia May Coldwell, right, and Hampton Brooks Douglas stand onstage with the couple. Photo by Lane B. Parks

Avery Elizabeth Pettway and Dr. Wayne Tipps reigned over the 79th Chattanooga Cotton Ball on Aug. 3 in the Chattanooga Convention Center. Forty young women were presented as Cotton Belles to the king and queen during the dinner gala.

The queen is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Walden Pettway. She is the sixth member of her family to serve as Cotton Ball royalty since her great-grandmother, Anne-Elizabeth Patten Pettway, was the first Cotton Ball queen in 1933. Other family members to serve have been her grandfather, William D. Pettway Jr. as 1979 king; great-aunt Emmy Pettway Cerveny as 1959 queen; great-uncle George H. Patten Pettway as 1984 king; and cousin Anne-Elizabeth Pettway Youmans as 1995 queen.

Miss Pettway graduated in May from the University of Virginia. While at UVA, she created her own interdisciplinary major in family, marriage and religious studies. She plans to pursue a graduate degree and ministry in the field. While in school, she also was a member of the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, Center for Christian Study and a student counselor. A competitive barrel racer during her high school years, she is still an avid horsewoman.

The Cotton Ball king is an oral surgeon and has served as president of the Chattanooga Area Dental Society, Tennessee Dental Society and Southeast Society of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons. He is a graduate of the University of the South, where he was a member of Order of the Gownsmen, and of Emory University Dental School.

He is an ambassador of the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons and has received the association's Distinguished Service Award. He and wife Valerie are members of First-Centenary United Methodist Church, where he is chairman of the Pastor Parish and on the administrative board.

The Cotton Ball is not only Chattanooga's debutante ball for rising college sophomores but is a fundraiser that has donated thousands of dollars to local nonprofits, focusing on those that benefit women and children.