Village Living neighborly news & entertainment for Mountain Brook
Volume 7 | Issue 11 | February 2017
love
A LIFELONG
In roles of student, parent and employee, Stewart Sevier the glue behind MBE family By ERICA TECHO
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tewart Sevier’s first day at Mountain Brook Elementary was in 1954, when she entered first grade. She then worked in the front office as an office helper in the sixth grade. Now, with grown children who have also passed through Mountain Brook Elementary’s doors, Sevier finds herself back in the front office. “It’s kind of like this was just where I was supposed to have been,” Sevier said. “I almost went back to nursing school, but I just decided not to, that I really liked it [at MBE].” Sevier gets up at 4 a.m. each day before starting the morning shift at
See LOVE | page A22
Stewart Sevier first came to Mountain Brook Elementary as a student, then as a parent. Now, she’s the first face that greets most visitors at the front desk. Photo by Erica Techo.
At her side, (wo)man’s best friend Mountain Brook resident finds support system with the help of her rescue-turned-service dog By LEXI COON
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Molly Palmer with Harley, a 4-month-old beagle/bulldog cross who has trained as an owner-assisted service dog at Roverchase in Pelham. Photo by Lexi Coon.
Molly MacFarlane Palmer’s mixedbreed dog, Harley, isn’t just a pet. She’s also a guardian that helps her owner avoid and recover from panic attacks. Palmer adopted Harley, who she guesses is a beagle/bulldog cross, from the Greater Birmingham Humane Society last summer as a puppy after her former fiancé brought her home as a surprise. It didn’t take long
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for her to realize the benefits of having Harley around. Each person experiences panic attacks differently, but for Palmer, they are a “non-reality.” “It’s like being in one of Salvador Dali’s pictures,” she said. “A lot of people think they’re having a heart attack or something like that, but in fact they’re having a panic attack or an anxiety attack.” While normally her panic attacks would
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occur only every few weeks, a car accident in June 2014 left Palmer with severe brain injuries and significantly more frequent panic attacks. “The severity of [the attacks] was tenfold afterwards,” she said, adding that sometimes she would have as many as five a week. A few months after getting Harley, Palmer noticed she stopped feeling as anxious, and her panic attacks had decreased. It was clear Harley was more than just a pet. “Originally, she was supposed to be the family dog, and ... we were going to do
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Sports .................. B14 Gift Guide ............ B18
Faith .................... B20 Calendar ............. B22 facebook.com/villageliving
Refusing to Lose
Success on Screen
Mountain Brook sharpshooter Sean Elmore has the ability to bring the crowd to its feet on any given possession.
Former Spartan Christina Xing finds her niche in films, has latest piece screened at a film festival in New York City.
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