Alexander gets key to the city
At the Sept. 23 City Council meeting, Mayor Stewart Welch awarded a key to the city to one of Mountain Brook’s most distinguished citizens.
Dr. Kevin Alexander, a lifelong Mountain Brook resident, has practiced dentistry in Crestline Village for the past 30 years.
“I get to do what I love to do with people that I love to do it with, both my team and my patients,” Alexander said. “... At the end of the day every day, I feel like I’ve done something to help someone.”
Alexander said he didn’t entirely know what it meant to get a key to the city, so he decided to look it up. He learned a lot about its origins and, in a nutshell, discovered it is an honorable recognition given to somebody who has served the community well.
He called it a humbling accolade.
“I really went into [dentistry] because I wanted to serve,” Alexander said. “I wanted to help people.”
Alexander graduated from Mountain Brook High School, where he played soccer, in 1981 before matriculating to Birmingham-Southern College. He majored in biology and decided to pursue dentistry early in his college career.
Shadowing a dentist during a break from school provided him direction.
“I was all in from that point,” he said. “I knew that’s what I wanted to do.”
After graduating from Birmingham-Southern, Alexander went to dental school at UAB. During his final year, Dr. Lem Rainwater visited the school and asked the dean of students to recommend a budding dentist who could join his practice.
The dean suggested Alexander, and the two worked together for about a year and a half following his graduation from dental school in 1989. Alexander then took over Rainwater’s practice, which he moved across the road to its current location at 48 Church St.
It has been there for the past 28 years.
“I think it matters what you do, but it also matters how you do it,” Alexander said, “and I think that’s a big deal.”
Alexander has a second location, Over the Mountain Dentistry, that he opened in Mountain Brook Village in 2015. He is a member of numerous professional organizations, including the American Dental Association and the Academy of General Dentistry.
Apart from his work, Alexander is also involved at Canterbury United Methodist Church and with Birmingham-Southern’s alumni association. In the past, he has contributed to the city’s chamber of commerce board and school board.
Upon receiving his key, which is engraved with the city logo and fits in the palms of his hands, Alexander took it home to his family. He met his wife Maria at Birmingham-Southern and has three sons: Joseph, Cole and Eric.
The key only stayed at Alexander’s house for about a week, he said, but now resides on a wall in his office.
It reminds him of what he’s done and, more importantly, why he’s done it.
“The large part of what drives me is my faith,” he said. “I try to live a Christ-like life, and I think serving is really at the root of it all.”