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Dr Frances Kendrick of Valley Creek Veterinary Hospital was recently honored as the 2025 Veterinarian of the Year by the Alabama Veterinary Medical Association.

She was nominated for the award by her peers. Not only was it special for her to win the award, but she also won it at the same time her good friend and mentor, Dr. Bill Bledsoe from Camden, who won the 2025 ALVMA Distinguished Service Award.

“God always puts the right person in a place at the right time to serve in our association, and he put Bill Bledsoe in place at the association,” Kendrick said. “He’s always supported our profession. He didn’t just clock in and get to work. He always is a leader in what he does.”

Kendrick wasn’t looking for the position of president of the Alabama Veterinary Medical Association, but she said she would serve unless someone else wanted the position.

As she was waiting her time to serve as president, she had a chance to see what was going on in the association and the veterinary business across the state. She saw several things that she wanted to do to help the association and to improve the business statewide.

One of those issues was offering emergency services and emergency management.

“It was just never functional, and as president, I breathed a little life into that group,” Kendrick said. “If let’s say a tornado comes through and hits a veterinarian’s office, we now have a group that will respond with supplies and venues that are willing to help with the displaced animals.”

One of the other areas that she is proud to see progress is with offering health insurance to veterinarians and the workers in their offices. Veterinarians generally work by themselves and are unable to provide their staffs insurance due to the costs.

“Now, we offer group health insurance, vision and dental as a member of being apart of the Alabama Veterinary Medical Association,” Kendrick said.

She is also happy that the association was also able to offer support for the veterinary technicians and to be a voice for them. They put together a veterinarian technician advisory committee to help address some concerns that technicians have and to prevent them from pursuing other careers.

“They’re your veterinary nurses, and they deserve more respect than what they get,” Kendrick said. “And I hope that we did a little better with that while I was present. And I think it’s because of the insurance reason because that was a really big deal for us.”