Jody Kimbrell in her office
Credit: Elaine Hopkins | ©Elaine Hopkins
PEORIA, IL - Jody Kimbrell proves that you don't have to be slick, glamorous or middle class to best the banks and lawyers.
But you must be willing to stand your ground, to never back down, to refuse to be intimidated by the suits.
"I overturned a rock, and there they all were. Then they came after me," Kimbrell said. "I've never been one to run from a
fight."
She knows how to sling a phrase, calling her adversaries "sharks," and adding: "They were out for blood. Mine."
Kimbrell, 49, calls herself "a backwoods real estate broker."
She's no blow-dried business woman. Her office attire is a T-shirt and sweat pants.
Her cluttered office overflows with animal figures and papers, piled on shelves and on the metal desk with a "Bush-Cheney" bumper sticker still clinging to one side.
Her cell phone announces a call with "The Star Spangled Banner."
A sagging green couch with a ripped arm, and two Chihuahua dogs, Fang and Poncho, complete the scene. She jokes that the canines are her "attack dogs."
Despite her blue-collar image and background, Kimbrell, of Kimbrell Realty Inc. and part owner of Jeth Court Apartments, 6608 N. University St., Peoria, has survived a complex legal conflict with establishment lawyers and a bank in this downstate Illinois city where the elites stick together.
"A comedy of errors, but very vicious," she said.
Her tale of these encounters sounds like fiction, but thick legal documents from two courthouses back up her story. The files are spiced with an occasional angry letter to a judge from Kimbrell, who could not resist going beyond the formal language of the courts.
"I have little faith in the judiciary branch, no faith in the integrity and ethics of lawyers, but I have a lot of faith in the American citizens who will be sitting on that jury," she wrote in one 2002 filing.
Kimbrell wants her story told to show how an underdog can win with perseverance, research and hard work.
She is a granddaughter of a prominent Peoria area couple, Cookie and Helen Blair. Decades ago they each held the office of Peoria County Recorder of Deeds, an important local elected office.
But you must be willing to stand your ground, to never back down, to refuse to be intimidated by the suits.
"I overturned a rock, and there they all were. Then they came after me," Kimbrell said. "I've never been one to run from a
fight."
She knows how to sling a phrase, calling her adversaries "sharks," and adding: "They were out for blood. Mine."
Kimbrell, 49, calls herself "a backwoods real estate broker."
She's no blow-dried business woman. Her office attire is a T-shirt and sweat pants.
Her cluttered office overflows with animal figures and papers, piled on shelves and on the metal desk with a "Bush-Cheney" bumper sticker still clinging to one side.
Her cell phone announces a call with "The Star Spangled Banner."
A sagging green couch with a ripped arm, and two Chihuahua dogs, Fang and Poncho, complete the scene. She jokes that the canines are her "attack dogs."
Despite her blue-collar image and background, Kimbrell, of Kimbrell Realty Inc. and part owner of Jeth Court Apartments, 6608 N. University St., Peoria, has survived a complex legal conflict with establishment lawyers and a bank in this downstate Illinois city where the elites stick together.
"A comedy of errors, but very vicious," she said.
Her tale of these encounters sounds like fiction, but thick legal documents from two courthouses back up her story. The files are spiced with an occasional angry letter to a judge from Kimbrell, who could not resist going beyond the formal language of the courts.
"I have little faith in the judiciary branch, no faith in the integrity and ethics of lawyers, but I have a lot of faith in the American citizens who will be sitting on that jury," she wrote in one 2002 filing.
Kimbrell wants her story told to show how an underdog can win with perseverance, research and hard work.
She is a granddaughter of a prominent Peoria area couple, Cookie and Helen Blair. Decades ago they each held the office of Peoria County Recorder of Deeds, an important local elected office.
- Jody Kimbrell stopped the "suits" from taking her property.
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