By BETH CHAPMAN / Community Columnist

Montevallo Mayor Hollie Cost has a dual role. In addition to being mayor since October of last year, she is also professor of special education and the service learning coordinator at the University of Montevallo. Though she earned her Ph.D. in special education from Auburn University, she has been at UM for the past 13 years.

Cost has been instrumental in linking the university more closely with the community through her leadership efforts in initiatives such as the Montevallo Connection, gifted student field trips, after-school tutoring programs, college access initiatives, Montevallo Sister City Commission, neighborhood revitalization programs and community arts experiences.

Her passions are developing and maintaining initiatives that support the economy, strengthen local schools, showcase the local arts culture, encourage a healthy lifestyle and promote a more sustainable and cleaner natural environment. Her vision is to realize Montevallo’s vision of college culture, country charm through community connections.

“I believe we have unique position in the state because we have features you don’t often see together in one community: American Village which is unique in the nation, the only public liberal arts college in Alabama and the new Veteran’s Cemetery, which is a huge honor, and natural features such as Orr Park.

Cost said people refer to Montevallo as having “good bones.” They have a good infrastructure and a walkable community, which attracts the old and young alike.

The city has partnered with the county and the university to purchase a building to house the Behavioral and Social Sciences in downtown Montevallo. The project is called Montevallo on Main and will bring 1,000 students per week into the downtown area.

Mayor Cost and her husband, Andre, who is an artist, have two sons, Eli and Campbell.