Shining Examples: Mountain Brook Chamber Honors 3 Citizens and Public Servants with Prime Awards
By Emily Williams-Robertshaw
Mountain Brook city officers, community customers and school system representatives collected beneath a tent on the Henley Park Celebration Garden at the Birmingham Zoo on April 27 for the Mountain Brook Chamber of Commerce’s Yearly Luncheon.
At the event, the chamber acknowledged its new president, Ricky Bromberg, who will take over the posture formerly held by Tonya Jones. In addition, Mountain Brook City Schools’ superintendent recognized graduating members of Mountain Brook Substantial School’s Leadership Mountain Brook plan.
The highlight of the software was the recognition of the recipients of the city’s three best yearly awards. Previous Mountain Brook Mayor Terry Oden attained the Jemison Visionary Award, and Detective Drew Moore was named Mountain Brook’s Worker of the 12 months. The O’Neal Library introduced its Tynes Award to lifelong supporter Penny Website page.
In accordance to library board President Susan Elliott, the award is every year “presented to honor a patron who has gone higher than and outside of for the very good of the O’Neal Library.
Page’s grandparents, Elizabeth and Kirkman O’Neal, gave the seed income necessary for the library, built in 1965.
“If my grandparents could see the library currently, rebuilt in 2001, with all that can take put there, they would be very amazed,” Web site claimed. “I recall visiting the library as a tiny female with my grandparents and mothers and fathers and picking out a book. I’m now getting my grandchildren to tale time and finding out a reserve, experiencing the terrific circle of lifetime.”
Page has volunteered at the library in a variety of capacities, via her do the job with the Junior Women’s Committee of 100, the Junior League of Birmingham and by serving on the library’s board for 12 decades, such as a stint as president from 2018 to 2019.
“One of the bullet points less than the library’s mission statement on their web site is to stimulate a love of studying and understanding in our youthful people today,” Web site claimed. “Aren’t we lucky to are living in a local community which values so really both instruction and examining.”
Terry Oden
“I’m most honored and flattered and humbled to be the receiver of the Jemison Award,” Oden claimed. “This, I guess, could be considered the Congressional Medal of Honor for Mountain Brook.”
The award is presented every year to another person who has gone over and beyond to assist the city. Oden explained he recalls when the award was conceived and by no means imagined he would ever acquire it.
Yet, presenter Tonya Jones recounted the function Oden did to champion the city’s achievements whilst serving on the city’s preparing fee, the Town Council and in 5 phrases as Mountain Brook’s mayor.
Oden grew up in the East Lake neighborhood and graduated from Woodlawn Higher Faculty. He remaining Birmingham to attend higher education at Auburn University, breaking absent to function in oil fields in New Mexico. He then joined the U.S. Military and was stationed abroad in Japan for three several years.
When he returned stateside, he was in a position to graduate from Auburn and went on to start his occupation in the U.S. Mystery Services.
He was initial specific with the Kennedy spouse and children and, subsequently, the relatives of Lyndon B. Johnson.
“Throughout his various assignments with the Secret Support, he helped shift Jackie Kennedy from D.C. next JFK’s assassination,” Jones stated. “He attended Lucy Johnson’s honeymoon and attended George Wallace’s bedside immediately after he was shot.”
Oden cultivated a worldly awareness through his encounters with the Mystery Services, as did his loved ones, like his spouse, Sandra, and his daughters, Christie and Mary Elliott.
The Odens have lived in Atlanta New York Washington D.C. Austin, Texas Birmingham Montgomery Kansas City and San Francisco. In Paris, Oden served as special agent in cost of intercontinental operations and attaché.
“Knowing it was time for his loved ones to set roots, he retired from the Magic formula Provider in 1988 and transitioned to senior vice president of corporate protection for AmSouth Bank, the place he worked for 10 years before starting off his personal stability consulting organization,” Jones said.
When Oden and his household settled down in Mountain Brook, they were being drawn in by its Mayberry feel. It was that feeling that incited Oden’s drive to consider on a community provider part in the group.
He served on the city’s arranging fee for 10 years prior to starting to be a member of the City Council in 1992.
He then took on the part of mayor, initially functioning unopposed in 1996 and continuing to keep the position for 20 several years.
Milestones during his tenure as mayor incorporated hiring Town Supervisor Sam Gaston, overseeing the construction of the new City Hall developing, the beginnings of the Lane Parke progress and the construction of the Grand Bohemian Resort.
A tale that is unforgettable to Oden is what he refers to as “the untold story of the zoo.”
“It was again in the 12 months of 1998 and a Shades Valley residence was fallow on the land,” Oden recounted with much dramatization. “And the wolves were being circling and licking their chops. Twenty-one key acres in a prime spot.”
That fallow land was the former web page of Shades Valley Substantial University off of Lane Parke, and Oden had heard notify close to city that a “big wolf” was hunting to acquire the ton and construct a significant box retail outlet, probably a K-Mart.
“Being the perceptive man or woman that I was, I recognized that it would be an financial disaster for Mountain Brook Village and an aesthetic disaster to the whole region,” Oden stated.
He achieved with the likely prospective buyers, who did not come to feel the need to have to let him in on their plans ought to they obtain the home. It was sufficient to send out Oden on a mission to purchase the home and develop one thing that would be of better use for not just the Mountain Brook group, but the whole Better Birmingham space.
He fulfilled with the mayor of Homewood, then Barry McCulley, and the Jefferson County commissioner, then Gary White, and bought them on a approach to merge their cash and acquire the land to be leased by the Birmingham Zoo.
The zoo was in dire straits. It was operate-down, beneath-funded, and many thought it would stand a prospect of recovering and succeeding if it went personal.
Whilst the city of Birmingham and then-Mayor Richard Arrington Jr. had been hesitant to give resources to purchase the residence, Oden was ready to do the job with them to make the zoo a private entity to safe the offer.
Drew Moore
In accordance to Mountain Brook Police Chief Ted Prepare dinner, Detective Drew Moore has expended his mere 9 several years with the Mountain Brook Law enforcement Section creating a file of excellence.
“Very early on in his career, we saw what benefit he brought to the office,” Prepare dinner mentioned. “So considerably so that just after serving on patrol for only 4½ decades, we signed him to the detective division.”
Prepare dinner explained it could have been the fastest journey from patrol to investigation in the department’s background.
Immediately after showcasing excellence in his do the job as a detective, Moore was assigned to the U.S. Magic formula Company Monetary Crimes Undertaking Pressure in November 2017.
“Through the encounter he obtained when assigned to the Magic formula Services process drive, he supplied the Mountain Brook law enforcement division with data and accessibility to resources seldom produced readily available to municipalities the sizing of Mountain Brook,” Cook stated.
The calendar year 2020 was a significant one for Moore. He was involved in a selection of superior-profile circumstances, some on the frontlines and others guiding the scenes.
Cook observed that Moore’s forensic evaluation of digital equipment served uncover important information and facts in the scenario of the late Megan Montgomery’s murder in December 2019. The proof authorized Montgomery’s household to lately agree to a plea agreement and avoid the even further ache of heading to demo.
In June, Moore’s efforts during a theft investigation of a Mountain Brook business enterprise resulted in the recovery of extra than $280,000 in stolen funds.
Cook concluded by recounting a lesser-regarded story – Moore’s involvement in supporting discover the two persons who kidnapped businessman Elton B. Stephens Jr. in September.
While he was off obligation at the time and the circumstance was exterior of the city’s jurisdiction, Cook mentioned Moore answered the connect with when requested to help with federal and neighborhood agencies’ investigation endeavours.
“In the news on that case, you never ever observed the Mountain Brook Police Division,” Prepare dinner said. “That’s kind of the way we like items.”
Moore received the victim’s mobile telephone and was in a position to download important details, like pinpointing where by the sufferer experienced been taken by his captors.
“The FBI agent standing all over explained, ‘You can do that?’” Cook recounted. Moore went on to get hold of online video footage of the suspects and found that the victim had an app that monitored his slumber apnea issue. Soon after retrieving info from the application, Moore uncovered recordings of the suspects committing the kidnapping.
“He tracked down and recovered most of the dollars, if not all of the income that was delivered so that the sufferer could be released from that suspect,” Prepare dinner additional.
Function emcee Jack Royer, an anchor with CBS, famous that he claimed thoroughly on the circumstance but had not read of Mountain Brook’s involvement in the investigation efforts.
