The pride of Camden: Kay Ivey's path to the governor's office

Andrew J. Yawn | Montgomery Advertiser

CAMDEN — It was 1963 when the prophecy of Kay Ellen Ivey was written and read.

It was a reverse time capsule of sorts, a letter sent from the future to the past and stuck in the pages of the Wilcox County High School Class of '63 yearbook. Setting the scene for "the biggest and best Homecoming yet," the letter depicts the "Wi-Co-Hi" classmates returning to 1980 Camden from their predicted walks of life. Penny Salter had become a “highly paid” bikini model. Tommy Tate was now a ballet instructor. Betty Cooper was a P.E. teacher, and Nancy Acker had become a dancer. They all gathered in Camden's courthouse square where the narrator asks what all the fuss is about.

“Why I thought you knew!" Terry Sue Martin says. "Kay Ellen Ivey has just been elected governor!"

Fifty-four years later the "prophecy," as they call it, was proven right.

“Isn’t that something?” Ivey said in a phone interview with the Montgomery Advertiser nine days after getting sworn in.

Nobody in Camden ever doubted it.

A message from the governor

It was 6 p.m. April 10 when Ivey took the oath of office. She had been hearing rumblings just like everybody else about then-Gov. Robert Bentley stepping down amid charges of misuse of campaign funds, but it wasn't until that Monday that she learned she'd be governor.

“I was at the lieutenant governor’s office, of course, and got an invitation from the governor that he wanted to meet with me at 1:15 that afternoon," Ivey said. "He told me he was going to resign, and he planned to resign at 5 o’clock that afternoon. So I went home and changed clothes."

Ivey would not disclose any more of the conversation with Bentley except that he wished her well and told her how much he thought of his staff.

“It was just a private conversation,” Ivey said. “He was very forthright that he was doing what he thought was right.”

Everybody in her hometown of Camden knew Ivey could one day become governor, but neither her friends nor her yearbook could have predicted how it would happen. Ivey announced a run for governor once in 2010 but changed course and instead won the lieutenant governor seat that year and in 2014. Likewise, nobody could have foreseen the stunning fall of Bentley or that the office would fall to Ivey because of a sex scandal. But all who knew Ivey had a feeling that “Kay Ellen” or “Miss Kay” would one day hold the top office in the state.

In Camden, that’s pretty much everybody.

“We laughed and said, ‘If anybody from Camden can do that, Kay Ellen can,” said Penny Selsor, the former Penny Salter who, in another life, may have been a highly paid bikini model. “Through the years I’ve thought about that. She was always interested in civic work, and of course, when you go back and look at her past, you can see how involved she was.”

Pride of Camden

Camden is not a one horse town. There are several horses and some cattle, too. But it is a small town. There are two traffic lights, three banks, nine churches and a population that hovers like a hummingbird around 2,000 — the legal line between a city and a town in Alabama.

It was here that Ivey barrel-raced horses with childhood friend Billie Strother Gibbs, played ball with neighbor Max Baggett, danced the night away at Journey's Inn and began a political career she never aspired to have but that her yearbook told her she would.

Further south is the town of Repton, where she was born; Tunnel Springs, where her mother, Barbara, lived while pregnant with Ivey; and Vrendenburgh, a town of only 300 people and one church where Ivey's dad, Boadman Nettles Ivey, took her on weekends to work on the family farm. There Ivey learned about cattle dehorning, seed inoculation and mountain oysters that are much different than the kind from the gulf.

"She's not a pushover," Strother Gibbs said beaming with pride. "She's a Christian and a lady, but she's not soft. People better be on their toes with her."

And yet from this small town of big porches, a relatively large amount of political prominence has emerged.

Alabama’s 39th governor, Benjamin Meeks Miller, was also from Camden. He was said to be so frugal he took his own cow to the Capitol to supply milk and butter, a trait Ivey identifies with after years of her mother making all of her clothes. Former U.S. Rep. Jo Bonner and his sister, former University of Alabama president Judy Bonner, are also cut from Camden cloth, and U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was an Eagle Scout in Camden who went to the same school as Ivey, Baggett, Strother Gibbs and the others.

"We never aspired to elected offices growing up," Ivey said. "We were just each products of the community of Camden. It's a small community. There were only 35 folks in my whole graduating class. In Camden, Alabama, folks help one another. Neighbors are neighbors, and you're taught by parents and teachers alike to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. There are all kinds of public service arenas and opportunities came our way respectively."

Since Ivey took the oath of office, that political pride has bubbled up again in Camden. There's talk of having Kay Ivey Day and a parade for the new governor. If you walk into any store in town, anybody you ask about Ivey will tell you two things: how proud they are and how deserving she is. They will also mention Sessions, Miller, the Bonners and tell you where you should have lunch, too.

"There’s a whole new attitude in town," said Elizabeth Grimes Reaves, director of the Wilcox County Chamber of Commerce. "People are excited. You go to the Piggly Wiggly, and you see someone and they say 'Hey, you see our girl is governor?' That’s our girl."

Ivey has not lived in Camden for decades, but the whole town either knows her or grew up with her. Since taking office, there's been an energy buzzing around the town like a lightning bug caught in a jar.

"Everything she does will be in the best interest of the state," Baggett said. "Ain't no question about that, and you couldn't say that about all prior governors."

'I knew then she was going places'

Ivey may not have aspired to hold an elected office until much later in life, but she made all the right moves in the meantime. She was state officer in Future Homemaker’s of America. Vice president of the senior class. Lieutenant governor of Girls State. Beta Club officer. Girls’ Nation delegate. Good Citizenship Girl. Band president. Junior Miss.

And that was just in high school.

“Any office, Kay was involved in the top of,” Strother Gibbs said. “She did it all. And she was not like, ‘I did it all.’ She was just Kay. She's so down-to-earth.”

Some of those organizations, such as Girls State and Future Homemakers of America, would help Ivey build networks of friends and supporters across the state.

Judy Powe met Ivey at a Girls State meeting in Grove Hill when she was 15 years old and worked with Ivey for years after that through Girls State. Even then, Ivey was a powerful speaker, Powe said.

"I knew then she was going to go places," Powe said. "I mean, she had us so fired up we felt like we could conquer the world. And we were ninth-graders."

But Ivey attributes her involvement to the environment. The same way a fish swims if you toss it in the Alabama River, Ivey would join any group she could find.

“It was just growing up in Camden,” Ivey said. “You just grew up belonging to groups and doing good things. It was just sort of a natural thing to join groups who were trying to make things better than they were.”

Ivey continued to grow into leadership roles while in college at Auburn University. Baggett was one of the few that almost matched her civic engagement in Camden. He grew up to be a Camden city councilman for 22 years and mayor for eight. His and Ivey's backyards ran adjacent to each other, and Ivey, an only child, calls him “the brother I never had.”

“We finished high school and both went to Auburn. I was just trying to survive, and I looked around and the first thing I knew she was running for freshman senator at Auburn,” Baggett said. “She’s just always been oriented that way. She likes to be a public servant, and she’d do anything for folks she could help.”

Ivey won that election, the first of five elected positions in four years at Auburn, including vice president of the student body.

“Where there’s an organization she jumped right in,” Selsor said. “It was just a natural she would go into politics.”

Except she didn't. At least not right away.

Finding her way

Right after Lurleen Wallace was elected governor in 1966, Ivey was offered a job by Alabama's first woman governor. Ivey was set to graduate from Auburn with a degree in secondary education. She had grown close to Wallace after working her Auburn campaign, and in that moment, Ivey had a chance to take a conscious step toward politics, toward fulfilling the prophecy, with a person she had the utmost respect and admiration for.

Instead she turned it down, a decision she would have made differently later but one that matched her political aspirations at the time.

"I just wanted to help and serve. ... I probably should have taken it rather than pursue matrimony," Ivey said. "She was a lovely lady, smart as a whip. Cared about the people of the state. She taught me a lot."

Ivey moved to California to teach at Rio Linda Senior High School in Sacramento and be with her first husband, Ben LaRavia, the first of two unsuccessful marriages. After nearly two years, she moved to Mobile where she followed her mother's footsteps into banking at Merchants National Bank. Ivey was 35 years old when she accepted her first role in state politics, a cabinet position under Gov. Fob James, after a recommendation from former Auburn Dean James Foy.

"That was my first, real, sure-enough connection with an elected official," Ivey said. "(Foy) called me and said, 'Kay, we won this thing. You've been in banking. I need you to help run this state and serve the governor.'"

Childhood friends of Kay Ivey talk about Ivey's strengths Childhood friends of Governor Kay Ivey talk what will be her strengths as Governor governor.(Mickey Welsh / Montgomery Advertiser)

For the next two decades, Ivey continued to serve.

She learned about legislative processes as reading clerk for the House of Representatives in 1982, and besides a failed run for state auditor that same year, Ivey said she didn't have a desire to pursue an elected office until she was pushed to run for state treasurer in 2002. Until then, she held a number of appointed positions and worked with the Alabama Commission on Higher Education before she quit to return to Camden in 1997 following her father's death. Her mother died of leukemia months later.

Despite her Camden roots, Ivey has now been living in Montgomery for almost 30 years. She said she enjoys attending the early service at First Baptist Church, taking her dog Bear to her cabin on Lake Jordan and eating the Saturday breakfast at Derk's in Old Cloverdale when she has the time. She's also about to move for the first time in a while. When asked how it feels to be moving into the governor's mansion, she said, "I don't know. I've never done it before."

The new governor

On Tuesday, April 11, Ivey woke up governor of Alabama. The prophecy had been proven right, but there were two predictions it had gotten wrong. Ivey wasn't elected on Jan.7, 1980. She also wasn't elected. She said she woke up that day with that humbling thought.

"I did it with thanksgiving and also the recognition that this is not my administration," Ivey said of waking up as governor in her Cloverdale home. "This is the people's administration, and it is my job to provide them with honesty, openness and transparency."

Some outside of Montgomery and Camden may not know what to expect from Ivey. With slightly more than 20 months left before the next inauguration, she has not yet revealed if she will run for governor or what her ambitions will be during her truncated term. She would only say that she will support "the major projects" in the House and Senate this year before developing an agenda to take into next year's session.

Gov. Kay Ivey ends first press conference with a note about her dog Gov. Kay Ivey speaks to the press about her dog during her first press conference as governor on Thursday, April 13, 2017.

Those in Camden, however, already have an idea of what to expect.

"She's a go-getter. She's honest. Compassionate. What you see is what you get. She said that, but she means it. She doesn't take a whole lot of mess now," Strother Gibbs said. "She's not just going to pay somebody to be on the payroll."

Strother Gibbs and her husband, Al, have been watching more news since Ivey was elected. As they say, they "have to keep up with Kay."

"Things she doesn't like she's not going to put up with. Just like firing a couple people off the bat," Al Gibbs added.

State lawmakers have already noticed that work ethic that made Ivey Camden's favorite daughter.

“One thing we’re doing, which I’m very appreciative of, is we’re meeting the first of the week – the (Senate President) Pro Tem (Del Marsh, R-Anniston), the governor and myself, we’re sitting around the table and talking about the issues," said House Speaker Mac McCutcheon, R-Monrovia, this week. "She’s telling us what her thoughts are. Very open, honest discussion. We feel like there’s no hidden agenda. We feel like we’re able to discuss where we’re going, and she gives us her opinion.”

That wasn't the case in the past administration, McCutcheon said, and that lack of involvement from the top bred unnecessary confusion.

"I’m not saying that to be critical of the past administration, but we had a lot more interactions with the liaison people coming over than the governor himself," McCutcheon said. "The communication lines are clear, they’re distinct now, and things are going a whole lot better.”

If Camden seems ready to have Ivey in office, it's because the people there see Ivey as the antidote to the recent corruption that has eroded public trust in the state. They've also always expected it. Ivey's friends once made a deal with her that they could have a sleepover at the governor's mansion when — not if — she became governor. Gibbs remembers Ivey's father saying, "She'll be governor soon enough," when filling up at the pump in town. Days before she was sworn in, Ivey got a call from Selsor about the opening of Benjamin Meeks Miller's old law office in Camden.

"I said, 'You never know Kay, we may just have to open a museum for you,'” Selsor said.

But if you believe Ivey or her friends, she didn't wish for this to happen. Two years ago, the revelation of Bentley's affair made the chance of Ivey's ascent all the more likely, but Camden resident Jane Shelton Dale, a Girls State staff member and another close friend of Ivey's, said Ivey never hoped he would lose his office. She may have wanted the office, but not this way.

"The last couple years when we've been saying they were going to throw him out, she has never, not even in private, said, 'Oh, I hope they kick him out.' Kay's not like that," Shelton Dale said.

Ivey has not been able to visit Camden much in recent years. Trips to the beach and the mountains with her friends have become less frequent, and she now has more responsibilities than ever.

Camden residents say she still comes to town for the important occasions. She was "the first to come and the last to leave" for the Gee's Bend 10th anniversary, Reaves said. She attended the opening of local art shop Black Belt Treasures in 2005, and the shop's executive director Sulynn Creswell said Ivey still donates to Camden Baptist Church.

The Sunday after she was sworn in, Easter Sunday, Associate Pastor William Coen called for a prayer for the state's new governor.

"Just asking for wisdom and guidance for her," Creswell said.

Friends are the best to sing your praises, but they're also the best at knowing your faults. With Ivey, her friends had one common criticism.

"She works too hard," Shelton Dale said. "She has no conception of spending a Saturday in her gown and doing nothing."

Ivey has many friends, but not a lot of family. After the deaths of her parents, moments she said "collapsed her world," she kept their house in Camden for a while before eventually selling it, not able to go back as much as she'd like. She was also one of the older students in her class, and she's an only child, but whatever the reason, Baggett, Powe, Shelton Dale and Ivey herself agree that work is the center of her life. Maybe too much at times. Just more traits from her parents.

"I just know I have to work hard to get things done," Ivey said. "I enjoy doing what I’m doing, but I do miss not having enough free time to have friends at my cabin having sleepovers and having boat rides."

In between her swearing in and her waking up as governor the next day, Ivey did find a moment to relax.

Shelton Dale and other Girls State staff members were scheduled to have a meeting in Montgomery on April 10. Shelton Dale had gotten an email that morning from another friend that said, "Prepare for anything." Shelton Dale packed nicer clothes. Once news broke, she began calling friends back home, and about 12 people from Camden made it to the ceremony, including Baggett who has been with Ivey for her last three swearings-in now.

Afterward, Ivey ate dinner at Central with her Girls State friends who were quick to remind her about the deal they'd made.

"They even joked about it then," Ivey said. "It was, 'When are we going to have a sleepover?' and 'I want to swim in the pool.'"

When asked about Camden and the people that have come out of the area, some such as Baggett’s wife, Susan, say it’s something in the water. How else could you explain the flames of community pride that, like the city’s antiquated gas lamps, are always flickering?

Baggett, on the other hand, says it’s the water itself. Camden leans into one of the more crooked stretches of the Alabama River, the state’s first highway, and all that shoreline may have naturally instilled the townsfolk with a gift of gab. After all, the people in Camden are always looking for something new to talk about.

Since the small town's prophecy became reality, there's been no shortage of conversation.

“You don’t have a lot to talk about in a small town, but boy do we now,” Strother Gibbs said. "We want to have a parade for her. She may not have time now, but there will be a day, and she'll say, 'Of course, honey, I'd love to be there.' You know how Kay is."