Meet TVMA Member Dr. Frankie Locklar

19 Dec Meet TVMA Member Dr. Frankie Locklar

We’re pleased to introduce Frankie Locklar, Jr., who serves as TVMA’s legislative liaison.  Frankie is with Maury County Veterinary Hospital in Columbia, Tennessee.

How long have you been a TVMA member?

I think I joined when I graduated in 1982.  If not, shortly thereafter.

What do you see as the highest return/value of being a TVMA member?

I feel the most important value of our membership is our lobbying group as it affords us as a group the ability to affect our profession positively in the legislature.  We are more effective as a group than we would ever be as individuals. I fear most members really don’t realize how much is done on their behalf.

Do you have a particular practice area of interest?

I enjoy herd health in large animals and reproductive medicine in small animals.

What is one professional goal you have for yourself in the next 5 years?

I would like to slow down and enjoy the practice of our profession more.  I feel that the demand of the practice sometimes distracts from the satisfaction and enjoyment of veterinary medicine and the client/patient/veterinarian connection.

What are your hobbies outside of work?

I enjoy hunting, fishing and my small herd of beef cattle.

What is one personal goal you’ve set for yourself in the next year?

I would like to improve my ultrasound capabilities.

Most recent book you’ve read?

Proof of Heaven by Eben Alexander M.D.

When you have time to watch TV, what’s your guilty pleasure?

College Football and Braves baseball

Do you have an especially memorable/humorous client story you’d like to share?

Not long after I moved to Columbia, I got a call from a city farmlady.  To say she was new to the cattle business would be a gross understatement.  She had a cow who had just delivered their first new baby calf and she was concerned the January cold would be too hard on this wet squiggly newborn. I instructed her to get a Coker sack (burlap bag for those not raised in south Alabama) and dry him off well, get him and mom in the barn out of the wind and let nature takes its course. I instructed her to make sure the baby got some nourishment and call me back if she needed any other assistance. I received another blast from my beeper about 3 hours later. When I called her back, she said she had searched everywhere for a Kroger bag with no luck would a Red Food bag do just as well.  I assured her it would, and we spent the next 19 years educating her and her husband on the many challenges of farm life.