Rhonda Smith:
CLASS OF 1979
Vicksburg High SchoolClass of 1979
Vicksburg, MS
Rhonda's Story
Life
A native of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Miss Rhonda Kay Smith is the daughter of the late Daniel Ernest Smith and the late Mary Marshall Smith, both of Claiborne County, Mississippi. She lived in Baltimore, Maryland, Kansas City, Missouri and Jackson, Mississippi before relocating to Atlanta, Georgia in 2001.
Miss. Smith accepted Christ as her personal savior when she was just 4-years old and was baptized by the late Rev. G. C. Carr at King David No. 1 Missionary Baptist Church in Vicksburg, Mississippi. She faithfully attended Magnolia Missionary Baptist Church in Port Gibson, Mississippi with her family for many years, singing in the church choir as a young adult. She served under watch care and was active in the ministries of the Locust Grove Missionary Baptist Church in Vicksburg for several years before joining the Anderson United Methodist Church in Jackson, Mississippi in 1998. She is now a member of the ministerial staff at the New Beginning Full Gospel Baptist Church in Decatur, Georgia where Bishop James H. Morton is the pastor. She accepted her call into the ministry in 2004.
Her volunteer and community service work include serving on the Board of Directors, the Communications Committee and the Allocations Committee for United Way of West Central Mississippi, and serving as an oratorical contest judge for the Battlefield Optimist Club.
Miss Smith also is a founding member of the internationally acclaimed, award-winning Mississippi Mass Choir and served on the choir's General Board and chaired the Publications and Archives Committee for the group. And she has worked behind the scenes to help stage various special events such as the Mississippi Gospel Music Awards, the Mississippi Gospel Music Gathering, the Farish Street Festival, the Salute to Women in Gospel and the Installation Services of the Mississippi Gospel Announcers Guild.
She is currently a member of The Atlanta Chapter of the Gospel Music Workshop of America (GMWA) where she serves as chair of the Public Relations Committee.
She says that she lives by faith and that one of her favorite Bible verses is Philippians 4:13: "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me."
College
Rhonda Kay Smith attended Vicksburg public schools and is a graduate of Vicksburg High School. She earned a bachelor's degree in Mass Communica...Expand for more
tions with a concentration in Public Relations from Jackson State University (Jackson, Miss.). Attending the university on a full academic scholarship, she graduated Magna cum Laude and with other distinctions.
Miss Smith studied Distribution and Marketing Technology at Hinds Community College (Raymond, Miss.) before transferring to Jackson State. She worked her way through Hinds as a teacher's assistant for the Vicksburg Municipal Separate School District. While matriculating at Jackson State University, she completed an internship in corporate communications at the Institute for Technology Development and worked as a volunteer in public relations for the Central Mississippi Chapter of the American Red Cross, both in Jackson.
Workplace
Rhonda Kay Smith is a Public Affairs Specialist in the Division of Media Relations for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) based in Atlanta, Georgia. Her duties include serving as a spokesperson for the national public health agency and working closely with the mass media to schedule interviews and set up press events. She also provides support services in the areas of issues management and crisis communications for agency scientists and program staff.
Before coming to work for CDC in August of 2001, Miss Smith was the Director of Program Services and Communications for the Mississippi Chapter of the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation. In that position, she worked to implement and monitor community and professional education programs across the state, and worked with the mass media to publicize various special events and programs. She also represented the March of Dimes on several advocacy coalitions and community services committees.
Her first public affairs position was as a public relations representative for the Mississippi State Department of Health where she developed employee communications programs, including CORE, the health department's employee newsletter.
After graduating from JSU, she worked as a news clerk at the Kansas City Star in Kansas City, Missouri before realizing her dream of working for her hometown newspaper. She earned numerous honors and recognitions as a reporter and staff writer for the Vicksburg Evening Post, including awards from the Mississippi Press Association and the Associated Press Managing Editor's Association.
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