The tornado that tore through Tuscaloosa on April 27, 2011 devastated 65 percent of Alberta, the east side neighborhood Kip Tyner represented on the City Council and had grown up in himself. Tyner spent the rest of his career steering the neighborhood's recovery, first as Alberta's longtime District 5 councilor and, later, as Tuscaloosa City Council President. He died on September 18, 2026, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, at 70.

Tyner was a Tuscaloosa native, a graduate of the former Tuscaloosa High School and the University of Alabama, where he earned a journalism degree. His early career ran through a senator's office and a television weather desk: he served as assistant press secretary to U.S. Senator John Sparkman and forecast the weather for WCFT Channel 33 in Tuscaloosa. Radio host Steve Shannon, who once appeared on the Channel 33 set as a guest forecaster, recalled pieing Tyner in the face during a live broadcast as a joke about a missed forecast; Shannon's radio station paid the dry cleaning bill for Tyner's ruined suit, and Tyner took it all in good humor. The two, Shannon wrote, "laughed about it often" in the years since (953 The Bear). In 1986 he was named Alabama's Outstanding Young Man, and in 1993 he won a Druid Arts Award for his work with Theatre Tuscaloosa, where his 1992 turn in Oklahoma! reportedly drew a standing ovation before he had spoken a line; local audiences knew him best as Harold Hill in The Music Man (Yahoo News).

In 1987 Tyner partnered with the late Doris Leapard to launch what became his signature side project, the Kip Tyner Talent Search, run for decades through his own company, Kip Tyner Productions. The amateur competition grew into an annual fixture benefiting Eagles' Wings, Inc, a nonprofit serving adults with special needs in the Tuscaloosa area; its 37th edition, in the summer of 2025, staged auditions across three days and a finale at the Bama Theatre, with more than $5,000 in cash awards for vocalists, dancers, comedians and other performers. Tyner also hosted the weekday television program Great Day Tuscaloosa, which aired on Comcast Channel 21 and streamed on Facebook, keeping up the show for years alongside his council duties.

Tyner was first elected to the Tuscaloosa City Council in 1997, representing District 5 and the Alberta community for the next 29 years across seven consecutive terms, becoming, by the Tuscaloosa Thread's count, the longest serving councilman in the body's history. His colleagues elected him Council President in May 2021, and he was serving his second term in that role at his death. On the council he chaired the Litigation and Insurance Committee, sat on the Administration and Policy Committee, and served as an alternate on the Properties Committee, and in Alberta he championed the recruitment of SWJ Technology, an expansion of the Tuscaloosa Tennis Center, and road improvements along Juanita Drive and University Boulevard East (City of Tuscaloosa).

Rebuilding Alberta after the 2011 tornado, an EF4 that cut through the heart of east Tuscaloosa, became the defining work of the rest of Tyner's career. The district that came back included the Alberta School of Performing Arts and a new neighborhood of Habitat for Humanity homes built where the storm had leveled entire blocks. Five years after the storm, he helped open the Gateway Innovation and Discovery Center on University Boulevard East. "The Gateway is only the beginning of the revitalization planned for this area," Tyner said at the time. "We are bolstering a new vitality for Alberta" (City of Tuscaloosa). In 2024 he stood at the groundbreaking for an expansion of Jaycee Park and the Tuscaloosa Tennis Center, another piece of the district's long rebuild. "My heart is heavy today as we mourn the loss of a truly consequential public servant," Mayor Walt Maddox said after Tyner's death. "Council President Tyner was a steadfast and lifelong champion for Alberta, whose unwavering commitment shaped the community in profound and lasting ways" (WBRC).

Away from City Hall, Tyner chaired the Tuscaloosa Metro Animal Shelter Advisory Committee and was a lifelong advocate for shelter animals. He was also an avid Alabama basketball fan, telling a reporter during the team's 2021 season, "This is an absolute dream, this season." District 2 Councilor Raevan Howard, who served alongside him, called Tyner's passing "met with a heavy heart but fond memories of the leadership and dedication that he has contributed to District 5 and the City of Tuscaloosa as our Council President," adding that Tyner "was not just a community leader, but he was a friend to everyone he met and wanted the best for all of Tuscaloosa."

Tuscaloosa lowered its flags to half staff for him. The Talent Search he started with Doris Leapard in 1987 is still finding its next class of performers each summer at the Bama Theatre, and the stretch of Alberta he spent 29 years rebuilding, its performing arts school, its Habitat for Humanity homes, its Gateway center, its tennis courts and repaved streets, keeps running on the work he put into it long before most of Tuscaloosa knew him as council president.