ENTERPRISE — As Katie Boyd Britt prepares to take the oath of office for her first term in the U.S. Senate, those who knew her as she grew up here see her ascension as inevitable. It’s also fortuitous; who better to represent the Fort Rucker area than a woman who was raised in its shadow?
“The Katie we know can be tenacious but gracious. She succeeds but maintains humility, she is unwavering in her Christian beliefs, and she tackles every challenge with dignity, discipline and an incredible work ethic,” said Frances Strickland, a family friend and former employer of the U.S. senator-elect. “Everyone has a special ‘Katie story’ they can tell but they all have a common theme.”
Britt worked for Strickland at Strickland’s Jewelers while she was in high school and when she returned home from the University of Alabama at Christmas break. “I can wrap the gold presents with a bow with the best of them,” Britt said.
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“Whatever Katie does, she does well,” Strickland said. “This town has cheered her on in all her successes and accomplishments of the past 40 years.”
Katie Elizabeth Boyd Britt, born Feb. 2, 1982, is the eldest of Julian and Debra Boyd’s four daughters who all attended Hillcrest Elementary School. “I said then that Katie would be the first woman president of the United States,” said her first grade teacher, the late Felicia Morrow Metcalf, in a 2021 Britt campaign video. “Katie has a strong work ethic and excellent leadership skills.”
Britt was in the first grade when she was crowned Little Miss Enterprise. In the second grade, she was crowned the 1989 Little Miss National Peanut Festival held in Dothan each year. Her mother Debra was a former Miss National Peanut Festival Queen and the first former winner to have a child win the Little Miss title.
Longtime Boyd family friend Terry Duffie and Jennifer Wilkerson were co-emcees for the National Little Miss Peanut Festival that year. “I’ve spent a lifetime cultivating talent,” said Duffie, the chairman of the board and president of Scenic Productions whose three children grew up with the Boyd girls. “You knew she was the winner before they announced it just in the way she lit up that stage. When she walks in, she owns the room. Always has.”
Duffie said that onstage during the pageant he asked the then-second contestant what her favorite thing was to eat was. “She said that if she was in a fancy restaurant, she would order prime rib — but if it was just for every day, she loved peanut butter sandwiches,” Duffie said. “Her poise blew everyone in the auditorium away.
“She learned how to build a team from her mother,” Duffie said. “She’s learned how to find and bring to the table the right people for the team and who is going to be the winner? Every citizen in this state.”
Melanie Hill, who has known the soon-to-be senator since she was 7 years old, agrees.
“Katie can be in the middle of a tornado listening to you and make you think you are the only person in the world,” Hill said.
“Katie’s mom and I served on a National Peanut Festival committee together at the time Katie was Little Miss Peanut,” Hill said. “My husband, Walter, had been a judge when Katie won Little Miss Enterprise and predicted that night that with her out-of-this-world personality — and in that dress — she would win Little Miss Peanut.”
Hill told Britt when she was in seventh grade that she knew the youngster would be governor one day, “As she got older, I remained convinced that God had something big in mind for her,” Hill said. “My prediction is that she will set the bar for being a senator and everyone coming after will have to meet that expectation.”
Britt credits her parents for any successes she has attained. “My parents were truly the example of hard work. I watched them work six and seven days a week,” she said. “My dad always said, ‘Keep your head down and work hard and you can achieve more than your parents before you.’”
Enterprise’s Kid’s Korner owner Rhonda Welch and her daughter Vicki Caylor have the distinction of being Boyd’s first “outside-of-family” employer. “Actually, Katie’s very first job was working with her dad and granddaddy at their hardware store,” Welch said. “When Katie was nine years old, she asked me if she could have a job here at the shop. She said she was working for her daddy and granddaddy counting screws and whatever else they told her to do and being paid 50 cents an hour.
“I told her I could pay a little more than that so her mother dropped her off after school here to work,” Welch said. “We adored her. From the time she was little, there was something unique and special about Katie Boyd. Smart. Cute.
“People would come in my store and she would be-bop up to that front door and say ‘How can I help you?’ If she didn’t know where something was she wouldn’t let on. She’d say, ‘Just a minute, I’ll find it’ and that was my signal to help her. She was concerned about people. Her little mind was always going. There was something so unique about her. She was like a unicorn, a one-of-a-kind person.”
Katie Buck Cotter met Britt in seventh grade at Coppinville Junior High School. “It didn’t take us long to become friends,” Cotter said. She is just one of those people that radiates warmth and kindness and is easy to love.
“Throughout junior high and high school, if we were together and somebody tried to get our attention, they couldn’t just yell out ‘Katie’,” Cotter said. “And with both of our last names starting with the same letter, nobody could call us ‘Katie B’ either so they had to address us as Katie Boyd and Katie Buck to get our attention — which almost became like double names for us.”
Cotter remembers the duo baking cookies and singing along to the Dixie Chicks. “Neither of us could sing so it was just fine when we were singing off pitch together,” Cotter said. “We loved a good sleepover at each other’s houses and it usually involved a group of our girlfriends.
“It didn’t matter that we were involved in different things at the high school. We would meet up after our events and catch up on our day and night and these get-togethers almost always started with cookie baking.”
Cotter’s fondest memories were after church on Sundays. “Our families would load up the trucks and boats to head to Lake Cassidy. We spent many afternoons at the lake doing water sports, riding jet skis, and just enjoying being on the water with each other.
“After high school, we went to the University of Alabama together and then after college, were in each other’s weddings,” Cotter said. “Katie has been a wonderful friend even throughout life’s busiest seasons. She always has time for a chat and never forgets anything I tell her.
“She’s one of the most loyal people I have ever met and always ready to listen,” Cotter said. “No matter how busy she is, and with everything she has going on, she never forgets a conversation, always asking about my life, family and work. No matter how many times I try to change the conversation to talk about her, she is quick to change it right back because she wants to hear about me.”
While at Enterprise High School, Britt attended the Girls’ State leadership program, and was elected to a governor position at the conference in 1999.
Britt was a cheerleader at Enterprise High School, twice named “Cheerleader of the Year” at the World Cheerleading Association’s National Championships. She was later named Alabama’s Junior Miss, representing Coffee County in 2000 and was ultimately first runner-up to America’s Junior Miss competition.
At the University of Alabama, Britt was elected Student Government Association president and co-founded the Alabama Youth Summit. She graduated from Alabama in 2004, and received a Juris Doctor from the University Of Alabama School of Law in 2013.
Additionally, she served as chief of staff for U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, the man she is replacing in Washington, and as president of the Business Council of Alabama.
She is married to former Alabama and New England Patriots offensive tackle Wesley Britt. They are the parents of Bennett and Ridgeway.
On June 8, 2021, Britt announced her candidacy for the 2022 United States Senate seat in Alabama. Britt defeated Congressman Mo Brooks in the GOP runoff on June 21 with 63 percent of the vote. She won the general election on Nov. 8 becoming the first woman elected U.S. senator from Alabama, the youngest Republican woman elected U.S. senator, and the first to serve with school-aged children.
“What an incredible place to grow up,” Britt said speaking to the Wiregrass Republican Women’s Club on a recent trip home. “We’re not only a small business and agriculture community, but we are also a military community, referencing to Fort Rucker, the Home of Army Aviation.
Britt, like most kids raised in Southeast Alabama, learned early about the role of the always-present Army training helicopters flying across the sky. The Army’s big footprint stretches into almost every aspect of life for both soldiers and civilians in her hometown.
The military way of life that Britt experienced in her youth is now a passion she will carry with her to Washington. She said the sacrifice of military men and women every day is something she will never take for granted.
“You also see that sacrifice is not just theirs but that of their entire family because we sit next to their kids in school while their parents are gone for months on end. And, when they return home from their honorable service, this community knows that we must treat the veterans like the first-class citizens that they are.”
As she was ending her speech to the friendly crowd sitting in the Republican club audience, many who in one way or another helped shaped her life, there was no doubt that returning to the place that will always be known as home is important to Britt.
“I just want to thank you for what you taught me, for praying with me time and time again, for teaching me to be better, encouraging me, supporting me,” she said. “I can’t say thank you enough and how proud of the place that I am from…it’s not just the place called the Wiregrass that makes it so special, it’s the people. It’s the very people who have believed in me consistently.”
