Photo by Jon Anderson
Shelley Gentle
The Vestavia Hills City Council on Monday night appointed Shelley Gentle as the next member of the Vestavia Hills Board of Education.
Gentle on June 1 will be taking the spot currently occupied by Scott Brown, whose five-year term is coming to an end.
Gentle and her husband, John, have lived in Vestavia Hills almost 16 years and have four children in the Vestavia Hills school system. This coming school year, their children will be on four different school campuses: Vestavia Hills High School, the Vestavia Hills High School Freshman Campus, Pizitz Middle School and Vestavia Hills Elementary Dolly Ridge.
Gentle has served on the Vestavia Hills Parks and Recreation Board for 4½ years and is in her final year on that board. She has been active in the Junior League of Birmingham for 14 or 15 years and served on that organization’s executive board, as well as on the executive boards of Leadership Vestavia Hills and the Birmingham Boys Choir.
She said her parents always demonstrated community service, and that rubbed off on her. “I try to give back when I can,” she said.
She decided to apply for the school board seat because, with four children in the system, “I’m very invested in keeping our school system successful.”
Gentle said she thinks one of the biggest issues facing Vestavia Hills City Schools is the size of the student bodies in the schools. While Vestavia Hills feels like a small community, it is one of the larger city school systems in the state, and she wants to make sure the school system does those “small touches” to keep the community feeling small, she said.
Gentle was one of six applicants for this year’s opening on the school board, Councilwoman Kimberly Cook said. Others were Maurine Batson, Jacob Catrett, Brian DeMarco, Brennan Hall and Anthony Michel.
There were fewer applicants this year than usual, but it was an extremely strong pool of applicants, which made it a difficult choice, Cook said.
Gentle has a strong record of community involvement and has experience with all levels of the school system over the past 10 years, Cook said. She also has a proven track record of handling sensitive issues on the park board, Cook said.
“All of those qualities make Shelley an extremely strong candidate,” she said.
Mayor Ashley Curry said Gentle has done a stellar job with the Parks and Recreation Board, and he believes she will do well on the school board, too.
Gentle spent her early years as a child in unincorporated Jefferson County near Mountain Brook, and then her family moved into Birmingham off Sicard Hollow Road. She attended Advent Episcopal School and then The Altamont School before going to Washington and Lee University in Virginia, where she obtained a bachelor’s degree in computer science and theater in 1999.
She worked for several software companies early in her career, including for a defense contractor in the basement of the Pentagon, she said. When she moved back to the Birmingham area, she took a break from software work. She went to the Culinard culinary school and worked in catering at the B&A Warehouse and then stayed home with her young children for a while and did a lot of volunteer work, she said.
She and her husband started their own software company called Anovys 13 years ago. The company develops accounting and inventory control systems for produce growers and distributors.
Gentle said she believes her background in science, technology, engineering and math will be a nice addition to the board. Other board members who will be serving with her are Jonathan Handey, Jay Stewart, Amber Terakedis and Kyle Whittington.
