Cover Story
Diane Waud proudly accepts the title of “the South’s grandmother” stemming from the viral video skits produced by the popular “It’s a Southern Thing” YouTube channel. Waud’s video appearances have garnered millions of views online. The retired Mountain Brook kindergarten teacher is surprised by the notoriety that her acting in the comedy sketches has brought her, and she said she’s an example of someone who continues to learn and love new things as she gets older.
Waud’s work with Birmingham-based Red Clay Media and the “It’s a Southern Thing” videos began in 2017 when one of its creators Talia Lin reached out to Waud for help. “We knew each other from Virginia Samford Theatre, where I’d performed with the Birmingham Sugar Babies tap dancers over the years,” Waud said. “She sent me a message on Facebook after my retirement asking me to give her a call. They were looking for a grandma figure for a video.” Waud, with no formal theatrical training, dove into the project and relied on her background as a kindergarten teacher. “That was my stage,” she said. “When I did read-alouds, I’d become the characters with the voices and everything. I loved performing the books for my students.” Her first video with “It’s a Southern Thing” was one on what causes traffic jams in the South, but another one soon after became one of its most viewed. Titled “Choosing your Grandma Name is Serious Business,” the sketch shows the plight of a new grandmother choosing an appropriate name. She considers Granny, Memaw, and Mimi before settling on Grammy. Waud plays the main grandmother as she considers names at a store while interacting with other customers. She ends the sketch with the line, “Bless your heart.” That video had 3.6 million views at the time of this publication, and Waud said its popularity ever since its debut six years ago has amazed her. “After it came out, Adam Schwartz {the other primary creator at “It’s a Southern Thing”} called me and asked me if I was looking at the numbers,” she said. “I try not to look at things like that, but sometimes it’s hard not to watch. You want people to like what you’re doing. And Adam couldn’t believe how it just kept going up and up. He said they’d never had numbers like it.”
Since then, Waud has continued to make videos for the company and is always available whenever the creators come up with a new idea that needs an older actor. One of her most recent was something called a “hash it out” sketch where people debate over important Southern topics; the issue in question was “Which would you rather be trapped in? Bass Pro Shops vs Buc-ees?” Waud said that the videos provide entertainment, and they make viewers laugh at distinctly Southern things. “It’s just funny humor, and everyone can identify with them,” she said, “although they aren’t popular just in the South. We were in Montana and a man came up to me and recognized me. He told me that he didn’t watch television anymore but found us on YouTube.” Waud’s husband Bill and children have become accustomed to her being recognized while in public, and said they call it being found “in the wild.” After church just a few weeks ago, Waud said a young woman approached her while eating lunch. “She was a huge fan, and she came to the table and said, ‘Excuse me, are you this lady?” and showed me a video. We took a picture together,” she said. “It’s important to me to be kind to people when they approach me. It’s fun, and I hope they walk away saying she’s really a nice person.”
Rooted In and Raising a Family in Birmingham. Waud was born and raised in Birmingham, leaving to attend the University of Alabama and then coming home to teach kindergarten at Brookwood Forest Elementary School. She met her husband at her home church, Brookwood Baptist in Mountain Brook, when he moved to Birmingham from Illinois to work at Southern Research. “He knew someone from the Army who went to Brookwood, and he visited one day,” she said. “We didn’t have a lot of singles, and they wouldn’t seek out the church, so it was a God thing.” She and Bill raised their children Edward and Elizabeth in Mountain Brook where she taught kindergarten for decades. Waud initially taught for five years, went home with children for 12 years, and then came back to teach for another 20 years all at the same school. “I truly believe God gifted me as a teacher,” Waud said. “I used to teach school with my baby dolls, and I never thought about doing anything else.” During her years at Brookwood Forest, Waud’s students were known as “Waudos” and they often shared the sentiment, “Once a Waudo, always a Waudo.” In fact, the relationships she built with her students are what made her love teaching so much. “Every year I put an ad in the Mountain Brook High School yearbook with a picture of the kindergarten class of seniors I taught,” she said. “The last students I taught are in 9th grade this year,” she said, adding, “I loved the relationships with my kids, with other teachers, and with the parents of my kids.” Today, Waud continues to cherish the place she calls home and often brags about the South, the Birmingham area, and Mountain Brook in particular. “I work, shop, worship, and do everything in the place I’ve lived all my life,” she said.
Living a Life of Faith. Waud grew up in the church, and her husband’s father was a pastor. They continued that priority with their own family, and she credits her faith as the guiding force in her life. “Growing up, on Sunday morning there was no option but to get up and go to church,” she said “For our family, that was the choice for us too. And thankfully, our children never fought us on that.” Waud said that during her time at the University of Alabama, she became very involved in Campus Crusade with Christ while also finding wonderful friends through her sorority. And their two children had similar experiences when they went away to college. “Bill and I are very blessed that both of our children are very involved in their churches, and it really started in college,” she said. “Our son went to Wake Forest, and he became involved in the Reformed Fellowship through the Presbyterian Church, and our daughter went to Georgia where she found a wonderful group of Christian friends.” Today, the Waud family also includes seven grandchildren- four who live in Nashville with their son and daughter-in-law, and three who live in Birmingham with their daughter’s family (where she works as a pediatrician). “The grandchildren are all ages nine and under,” Waud said, “so whenever we’re all together, it’s something else.” Waud makes it a priority to spend individual time with her grandchildren when possible, and each year they spend a week together in August at a house on a nearby lake. She encourages young parents and grandparents to devote time to the children in their lives and to be deliberate in making faith an integral part of it. “In this day and age, families are so incredibly busy and there are so many things that can pull you away from church,” Waud said. “The world isn’t going to make it easy for you, so there are deliberate choices that you have to make as a family.”
Always Moving Forward. Waud also likes to encourage women her age to always be moving forward. She believes that it’s important to try new things and expand your interests and experiences. That’s what landed her in the “It’s a Southern Thing” videos, and it’s what moves her to regularly try other new things. Her time with the Birmingham Sugar Babies tap dance team ended in 2022, but she still meets with her dancing friends from those days. And she’s recently decided to extend her acting experiences onto a theatre stage. “Last year I went to season auditions for Red Mountain Theatre and showed up at a cattle call with 300 other people,” she said. “I got a call back, and last April I was in ‘Sister Act.’ I had speaking lines as one of the nuns, and it was more fun than you can imagine.” She hopes to spend more time on the stage, where she loves to connect with young people and work on her acting chops. And she’s always ready to film another “It’s a Southern Thing” video. Thank you Diane Waud for giving grandmas a good name!
-Cheryl Wray
