Each year we at Southsider Magazine ask you, our readers, to tell us about your extraordinary neighbors. We call them "Notable Neighbors," but the criteria to determine if they are notable is completely up to you. Once we get your suggestions, we have the enjoyable task of meeting, interviewing and photographing these special individuals who give of themselves to neighbors, neighborhood associations and various organizations in town.
This year we are featuring six individuals or couples as our Notable Neighbors, from a devoted library assistant to a woman perhaps better known by her nickname "Auntie Sue and the puppies" than her given name.
Although these individuals might not live in your neighborhood, undoubtedly someone just as outgoing and selfless is right around the corner from you...We collect names and information about Notable Neighbors year-round, so if you have someone who you think should be included in the September 2009 edition, please call us at 266-6537, email us at info@smileypete.com, or visit our Web site at www.smileypete.com to submit a nomination.
Kevin Kalika
Kevin Kalika, a 17-year-old student at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School, has been volunteering at the Beaumont Library since last November.
And what exactly is it that sets this volunteer apart? "He's really good about helping patrons," said Kelly Lamm, one of the children's librarians. "If he sees somebody that's looking for something, he will automatically go up and ask if he can help them."
At the library, Kevin does a lot of shelving and though he said it used to be tiring, it's not anymore. "I enjoy shelving the books and the DVDs," he said. He used to volunteer two times a week, but now has a job at McDonald's and is only available to volunteer one day a week.
"It's nice that I can rely on him and not have to worry where the books are," Kelly said. "I know that when Kevin comes in he will do a good job and make sure things are put away correctly and make sure things are straightened up nicely."
And when he's not working or volunteering, Kevin likes the Internet and TV Land. "I like the 'Brady Bunch,' 'Little House on the Prairie,' all those shows like that," Kevin said.
Kevin was well-known in the area even before he began volunteering at the library. "The circulation staff recognized him before I knew about him. He's been a weekly customer coming in and always checking out books," Kelly said. "He really loves using the library."
Dependable, careful and thoughtful to no end, Kelly says it'd be a hard task keeping him from his duties. "Even if it's pouring rain, he will ride his bike to volunteer at the library."
- Chelsea Bailey
Bryan and Jennifer Beck
Bryan and Jennifer Beck seem happiest just sitting next to one another at the dining room table in their new home after a long day of work. A few cups of decaf coffee to take them through the evening and the company of each other and their dogs, and they seem content.
It wouldn't be immediately obvious by their cheerful demeanors that they both spent their day working tirelessly on the tough issues-mental, physical and emotional-of others. But both Bryan and Jennifer have made a living out of caring for others-he in counseling and she in medicine-both through unlikely outlets in a day when young professionals can be driven by success and salary.
Bryan is a native of Lexington's south side, having grown up in the Stonewall neighborhood. Jennifer is a transplant; she arrived in Lexington on a full-ride scholarship to the University of Kentucky-a music scholarship. "I didn't finish in music," she said. "I took a nontraditional path. I was a nurse for five years and then studied medicine."
Her experience in nursing and home health eventually helped shape her path as a physician. "I enjoyed being a part of people's lives and being in their context. Not all of these patients were really heard," Jennifer recalls. "They had concerns that weren't addressed. I thought, 'I could do this.'"
She was soon enrolled in medical school at UK and, before she knew it, she was leading the pack as chief resident. It was about then that Jennifer considered her career options.
"I thought about starting a business with my co-chief resident, but it was too far away from what I wanted to do. I ended up choosing to work at the health department. There is a misconception that people who work there do so because they don't have options. That's not so. The physicians who work there are mission-driven and want to provide health care to those who need it."
In the same way that Jennifer's mission of medicine became clearly defined to her, Bryan fought his destiny from early years. The son of a therapist he always "swore I would never be a therapist."
But it wasn't long before his first post-college job landed him squarely back in therapy territory. "I took a job working in customer service and I quickly realized that people weren't mad about locks, but about other things that were going on. It turns out business was not my thing. I wanted to touch people's needs internally."
What followed were years of intensive training and experience-mostly with chemical dependency and recovery groups. "I just loved the process of redemption. You have people come in at the absolute bottom and they've been in before. I love to be the person who says, 'I don't judge. There is hope.'"
Jennifer and Bryan joke that they met in a bar while shooting pool, though it was a church function.
"I had worked for years with docs," Bryan said. "She had a complete humility and ferocious intelligence and a deeply caring spirit."
"He was just a lot of fun," Jennifer said. "Obviously a smart guy and was able to extend grace to people, to look past all of their junk to what's inside."
Between the two of them, these neighbors are committed to healing-body and soul.
- Anne Sabatino
Beth Wright
Like the cool kids in the summer, a lot of Beth Wright's time and devotion is spent around the poolside, though for strikingly different reasons.
As chair of the social committee for the Waterford Club House, Wright uses the handy neighborhood pool, her limitless dedication and the tight neighborhood's rambunctious fellowship as a diving board for many charitable causes year round.
Earlier this summer, Wright chaired the Disaster Blaster for the American Red Cross at Keeneland, working with a group of 15 other people from the Waterford neighborhood. The event was a success, and, hands down, Waterford delivered the largest contingency to the festivities.
Wright first got her feet wet with neighborhood fundraising back when the Man O' War Swim Conference, now a dominant summer activity, was just a small organization and needed money to keep afloat. With her now-grown children involved from its inception, Wright and other parents organized fundraisers for the swimming association. Now that the conference is well-funded, the neighborhood still uses the occasion to celebrate for the benefit of other causes.
Some of the neighborhood's most popular mainstays Wright helps organize are the unorthodox, and downright silly, Fourth of July parades through the main drag of the neighborhood and the highly anticipated Picnic with Pops (never, ever to be confused with the Lexington Philharmonic Orchestra's Picnic with THE Pops), where the event's mascot, Pops, makes an appearance and revelers reenact scenes from movies like "MASH" and "Animal House."
Wright says that the small pocket of people in Waterford are just very community minded and want to keep the neighborhood, and its residents, fresh as they grow in size and age.
"Your neighborhood can get stagnant. There was a group of us who wanted to keep it alive," Wright said. "We don't mind embarrassing ourselves."
For those interested, Waterford's next hoorah is The First Festival of the Dog, a tribute to Waterford's canine residents, at 2 p.m. Oct. 19 at the Waterford Clubhouse. Activities include a parade and a costume contest. For more information, call (859) 271-6401. The registration fee is a donation of dog food to benefit the Lexington Humane Society.
- Robbie Clark
Susan Malcomb
She might more readily respond to 'Auntie Sue and the Puppies' than anything else you could call Susan Malcomb.
A 20-year volunteer with the Lexington Humane Society (LHS), the organization made it official last Christmas when they offered her the full-time (and paid) position of president. "She had tears in her eyes and she said it was the best present she could have gotten," said Madison Carey, a friend and the director of development at LHS.
Even when Malcomb worked full time in retail, she was a devoted volunteer and worked to further the organization inside and out. "She would do anything -clean kennels, help with adoptions, play with the animals," Carey said.
She may have been most well-known, however, for her role as a foster parent to more than 250 animals. Nearly 200 were fostered in her years as a volunteer and an additional 50 or so have been in the eight months since her time of employment with LHS. It's that particular commitment that has earned her noticeÖand a nickname.
"It's a way to outsource what we do. People who don't come to the shelter can still learn about it," Malcomb said. "Neighborhood kids come to my front yard when they see me out there with the puppies. They're probably more aware of animal welfare issues than adults."
Work with animals is obviously a labor of love for Malcomb. It's obvious in the way she interacts with animals-and people. She has not only fostered animals, but also placed them with friends and friends of friends that she runs into on occasion.
"She was at an LHS event one time and complimented a woman on her dog. The woman was surprised that she had gotten the breed correct," Carey said of an adoption happy ending. "It turns out [Susan] had fostered the dog when it was a puppy."
"Fewer than 20 percent of animals come from shelter facilities, but we have 200 visitors a day at LHS. I just want us to become a resource for people and combat animal welfare problems," Malcomb said. "I want to educate people on what it takes to make a lifelong commitment. Just like any relationship, it takes work, time and energy, but we have an opportunity to take, take, take. Or we can give back, we can save a life."
- Anne Sabatino
Drs. Paul and Kay Rader
The Raders run. Literally and figuratively. They have run a family, a college, the International Salvation Army, all over the world in their travels and, most recently, Lexington's traditional summertime race, A Midsummer Night's Run. "They were faster at 70-plus than I am at 40-plus," jokes friend and former colleague, Carolyn Ridley.
The energy has carried them through their service to the Salvation Army, which took up much of their shared career-they were married just after college and then trained and commissioned together as well as two retirements.
After years of service to the Salvation Army, Drs. Paul and Kay Rader decided to take retirement and looked forward to a new, albeit still active, chapter in their lives. They were called back to the Lexington area, where they both had attended college, and called out of retirement to serve their Alma Matter, Asbury College, with Dr. Paul Rader taking up the responsibilities of interim president.
After their service to Asbury, the two have re-instated their retirement, but still participate with their community, their church and the Salvation Army. The couple was the subject of a 2001 biography by Carol Ferguson Hunt, entitled, "If Two Shall Agree."
- Anne Sabatino
Jeremy Corbett
Life in many ways has been a whirlwind for young Dr. Jeremy Corbett-and he's only 28. He was married just after undergrad to his college sweetheart, Cassie, and was deep into his studies at the Univesrity of South Florida medical school before long. Residency brought the couple back to Lexington, Cassie's home town and where "we had a network." Soon after, the couple brought their first child, Davis, into the world.
For Corbett, it may have seemed an unlikely place to choose - the place he had "not really wanted to go" back to when it was time for him to make a decision about attending Asbury College. But, as he reflects on the decision to return, he says, "Most people thought it was Cassie who brought us back here, but it was me. I guess when we left we thought we were done, but it's a comfortable city. The people are great and it's a big enough town that there are good restaurants and cultural activities-and I love UK."
Once the Corbetts made the decision to return, they didn't waste much time getting involved, even with Jeremy's busy schedule. "I really like medicine a lot, to get to see a patient and treat a patient-and I get to go home to my family at the end of the day."
"I'm still learning how to be a dad, a man, a husband," Jeremy said. "Before I was out of residency, life was just work. I used to have zero time. We're trying to formulate how we fit into the community in Lexington."
That quest may be part of the reason he and Cassie have decided to be so actively involved with church-teaching young married and premarital classes, which particularly appeal to Cassie's skill-sets as a former teacher. She only left her beloved job at The Lexington School to stay home with baby Davis. Jeremy also has volunteered to provide health care at clinics in Jessamine County.
"Jeremy is interested in much more than just going to work," said Michael Burnight, a friend and employee of Jeremy's Alma Matter, Asbury College. "He has a genuine interest in the well-being of the people he visits with."
- Anne Sabatino