Dr. Odom responded to the call to be a veterinary missionary in the midst of raising five children. She and her husband moved from Scottsdale, Arizona with their five kids to Ames, Iowa for mom to go to veterinary college at lowa State University, where Dr. Odom received her DVM in 1996. After a year taking care of farm horses, cows, and sheep in Appalachia, Dr. Odom and her husband returned to Phoenix, Arizona where they owned Downtown Pet Center in the inner city for six years, ministering to the poor and homeless as well as providing low cost spay/neuter for dozens of cat rescue groups. ln 2001 Dr. Odom took a position as Pre-Veterinary Advisor and Adjunct Faculty at Arizona State University, where she taught Vertebrate Zoology, Animal Science, and Animal Physiology to the pre-veterinary students. Dr. Odom has also worked for two large corporate veterinary practices, honing her medicine skills. After her husband became paralyzed from a stroke in 2003, they moved back home to North Carolina in 2007. ln addition to enjoying complicated medicine cases, Dr. Odom has pursued training in several alternative modalities including classical homeopathy, traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture, Western herbal medicine, and canine and equine massage therapy. She owns Sunflower Veterinary Clinic where she sees alternative medicine cases by appointment, and recently she opened both The Garden, a natural health store for pets and their people, and Carolina Cat Company, a unique gift boutique which offers both shabby chic and artisan gifts for cat lovers. Dr. Odom is active at her church, Crossway Chapel of Wilmington, and also attends Beth Simcha Messianic Synagogue in Ogden. She is currently a student at Denver Seminary, pursuing an M.A. in Leadership. A California girl, she met her husband Edsel, an accountant from Wallace, NC, at Surf City, and they have been married since 1972. They have five grown children and ten grandchildren. Dr. Odom enjoys living on her boat, and is down to four cats, four dogs, a wacky macaw named Samson, a beautiful little parakeet named Annabelle, and her sweet 25-year-old Arabian mare, Brandy. Brandy doesn’t live on the boat, but she lives at Sunflower Farm in Hampstead, which hopefully someday will be the site for equine massage therapy classes for women. 

Animal Science, Animal Physiology