Black Belt’s eye doctor Leroy Maxwell sees chance to retire after 40 years and takes it

After 42 years of serving as the Black Belt’s eye doctor, Dr. Leroy Maxwell is retiring.

Maxwell has turned over his business to Selma eye doctor Dr. Kristina Lovinggood of Primary Eyecare Center, who is in the process of moving her practice to the Eyemax office building on Medical Parkway from her longtime office on Dallas Avenue.

The move will double her space and create an expanded Primary Eyecare Center that will include her existing patients and Dr. Maxwell’s.

“This is a beautiful building, the location is amazing,” Lovinggood said from the Eyemax building on Monday. “I’m looking forward to taking on Dr. Maxwell’s patients and providing the latest in medical technology for eye care in Selma.”

Lovinggood will go from 3,000 square feet at her previous location to 6,000 at Eyemax and will combine Maxwell’s equipment with her own. She is in the process of changing the sign at the new building to reflect the change to Primary Eyecare Center.

Maxwell on Monday said he is doing all he can to support Lovinggood’s transition to help her be successful, adding his career was “a good haul.”

Maxwell started his practice in Selma in 1981 out of a building on Broad Street. He built the current Eyemax building in the early 2000s. Over the decades, Maxwell opened offices throughout the Black Belt in Camden, Thomasville, Uniontown and Demopolis and was often the only optometrist in those communities.

Poor healthcare access in the area meant Maxwell saw many eyecare issues from cataracts to glaucoma that is brought on by the high rates of diabetes in the Black Belt.

More from this section

Hong Kong's oldest pro-democracy party announces dissolution

French PM urged to intervene over cow slaughter protests

Indonesia flood death toll passes 1,000 as authorities ramp up aid

“When I got to Camden everyone had something. Cataracts were plentiful. There was a lot of glaucoma. It was astonishing,” Maxwell said. “But I knew I made a difference there. One patient said, ‘You put glasses on almost everyone in the county.’ Wilcox is one of poorest in counties in the country and there is a need for just about any type of medical care. And we provided eye care.”

A Paducah, Kentucky, native, Maxwell chose optometry after seeing a brochure at the eye doctor’s office when he was in middle school getting his first pair of glasses. It said you could get your optometry degree in less than six years, so he figured that’s what he would do. After an undergraduate degree at the University of Kentucky, he got accepted at the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s School of Optometry, which brought him to Alabama for the first time and he never left. Wanting to make an impact, he and his wife of 42 years Juanda chose to open a practice in Selma. He now says his heart “bleeds Selma” where he and Juanda raised their family and plan to stay after retirement.

“I had hoped to make an impact for sight saving here and I think I made difference,” Maxwell said. “I got into this not for the glory but to help people out.”

As his career winds down with his last day set for the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, he says it’s been rewarding to serve many families for three generations.

“I’m happy that I’m at this stage in life that I get to retire and see what it feels like to be retired,” he said. “It’s going to be a blessing.”

Dr. Lovinggood is also a UAB School of Optometry graduate who returned to her hometown to raise a family and build a business. Her roots in Selma run deep. She is granddaughter of former Selma Police Chief Melvin "Slim" Summerlin, who died in 2013, and part of the Summerlin Hardware family.

Lovinggood said she has been wanting to expand her business for several years, so this merger with Eyemax was the ideal opportunity.