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Birmingham’s Mounted Police Unit gives city school students veterinary medicine as a career choice

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Wilkerson Middle School students listen intently as Birmingham Police Officer Kimball Karmondi talks to them. A pair of officers and a veterinarian talked to Wilkerson seventh-graders about mounted patrol horses and career opportunities.

By Solomon Crenshaw Jr.
For The Birmingham Times

Wilkerson Middle School students listen intently as Birmingham Police Officer Kimball Karmondi talks to them. A pair of officers and a veterinarian talked to Wilkerson seventh-graders about mounted patrol horses and career opportunities.
Wilkerson Middle School students listen intently as Birmingham Police Officer Kimball Karmondi talks to them. A pair of officers and a veterinarian talked to Wilkerson seventh-graders about mounted patrol horses and career opportunities.

Ja’Marria Hudson was dressed for the occasion.

The seventh-grader at Wilkerson Middle School came to school last week donned in her black cowgirl boots.

Good thing too. Her choice of footwear came the same day Showdown and Dock, a pair of horses from the Birmingham Police Mounted Patrol Unit, would visit the Wilkerson Middle School campus.

“It was raining outside and my rain boots didn’t go with my outfit,” she said. “I just put on my cowgirl boots and coincidentally there was a horse outside. Yee-haw!”

Hudson was among about two dozen seventh-graders who took part in the Excellence in Blue event, where a pair of police officers, the horses and a veterinarian visited the school in East Thomas to give students a look at veterinary medicine a possible career choice.

“I’m just going to give them an opportunity to see the career paths that horses can offer in being a veterinarian,” said Dr. Barbara Benhart, an equine veterinarian, before the presentation. “There’s so much more than being a small animal vet.”

Officer Kimball Karmondi, who has been with the Birmingham Police Department for nearly 26 years, half with the mounted patrol, recalled being around horses as a 9-year-old.

“I saw a policeman in New York on a horse and I thought that had to be the coolest job ever,” he recalled. “That was my desire, to be a policeman on a horse.”

As Karmondi spoke, students arrived on the playground near the school. Some girls were visibly startled as they passed the trailer and saw a horse up close.

Birmingham Police Officer Kimball Karmondi gets a kiss, or rather a lick, from Showdown, a quarterhorse in the Birmingham mounted patrol.
Birmingham Police Officer Kimball Karmondi gets a kiss, or rather a lick, from Showdown, a quarterhorse in the Birmingham mounted patrol.

 

Seeing this big animal . . . it’s a little overwhelming to them, I guess,” Karmondi said.

Frayed nerves were not apparent as Karmondi and Benhart explained how they interact with horses.

“They (students) get a better understanding of them,” the officer said.

Hudson was the first student to step forward for a close examination of Showdown. She was familiar with horses after visiting a horse farm in Mississippi.

“It was very fun and interactive,” she said of Thursday’s campus event.

Jason Dunning, a seventh-grade science teacher, said the students were able to take what they’re learning in class and see it applied in real life with the horses.

“When the police horse showed up, the kids were already excited,” he said. “They could use what they learned.”