Billy Hix

After graduating from high school, I attended TTU in music education. Then after graduation, I started back to college and received another degree in information systems. After teaching computer science at Motlow College for a few years (while teaching computer science, I was lucky enough to have fellow classmate Steve Lynn as a student), I started work at Marshall Space Flight Center/NASA. I completed graduate degrees in computer science and then a degree in science education. While workingh at NASA, I attended grad school again in astronomy research. I returned to Motlow in the early 2000's to be able to care for my father and I taught science teachers.
I retired in 2015 from higher ed as Professor Emeritus and NASA and started my astronomy outreach program for schools - I bought a portable planetarium and visit about 72 schools each year at no cost to a school. I have received a large number of awards and honors for my work. In 2024, I was selected as one of six astronomy educators to spend two weeks at the Vatican Observatory. In October of 2022, my work was selected as the number one astronomy outreach program in the nation by the Astronomical Society of Pacific. In March of 2024, I had the 75,000 student inside my planetarium.
I want students to know that if they are willing to work hard, that they can do anything.
I am driven to make sure that students have more opportunities than I had. I have had a grand professional career. I watched three different space shuttle launches with three science projects that I had been a part of. I have had a career and adult life that I could not have imagined growing up in Flat Creek or while attending CHS. I hope that we all work to make a difference and to support public schools and public school teachers.