Words by Jenny Lynn Davis | Image by Al Blanton
The room at T.R. Simmons Elementary School fills quickly with laughter, music, and the scrape of chairs as students gather for story time. A typical day in Stori Brown’s class includes reading, writing, math, and plenty of dancing and singing along the way. But some of her favorite moments are the simplest: opening a book and watching a semicircle of children lean forward, eyes wide, ready to see what happens next.
“Kindergarten is magical,” she says. “The kids are excited about everything.”
Stori says that magic has always felt familiar. Her mother taught kindergarten for 30 years, and Stori spent much of her childhood in a classroom, tagging along after school, spending summers there, and pretending to teach long before she had a class roster of her own.
Unlike many people who explore different career paths, Stori never really questioned hers. The classroom felt like home from the beginning, and it’s where you’ll find her most of the time during the week.
On weekends and during holidays, though, she steps into a different world just a few minutes away from school. At Gibson Girl Boutique, where she has worked since 2017, she helps customers find clothing that feels like them. She first discovered the store while attending Bevill State Community College. While she was shopping, owner Candy Gibson mentioned she was looking for college students interested in working at the store.
“I said, ‘Well, I’m in college,’” Stori remembers with a laugh. “I never applied or interviewed or anything, I just started working there.”
Though the classroom and boutique may seem unrelated, Stori sees a clear connection. In both places, she is helping people build confidence. For her students, that might mean sounding out a sentence or asking a friend to play. For a boutique customer, it might mean trying on something new and feeling good in it.
Whether she is gathered around a reading rug or standing beside a dressing room mirror, Brown’s work comes back to the same thing: helping someone leave a little more confident than when they arrived. 78