wfn.org | Communicators honor Alice Smith, others at banquet

[NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG]

Jan. 17, 2001    News media contact: Tim Tanton·(615)742-5470·Nashville,
Tenn.  10-71B{016}

NOTE: This report may be used with UMNS story #015.

SAN DIEGO, Calif. (UMNS) - Alice M. Smith, editor of the Wesleyan Christian
Advocate in Georgia, has been named the Distinguished Communicator of the
Year 2000 by her peers in the United Methodist Church.

Smith said she was "astounded" to receive the honor, which was announced at
the Jan. 12 awards banquet of the United Methodist Association of
Communicators. "I really consider it a privilege to work in church
communications," she said. "I call it my ministry."

The banquet was the climax of a Jan. 11-13 meeting that drew more than 140
communicators from around the denomination to San Diego.

The communicator of the year award is given to the person who best
exemplifies religious communication in the United Methodist Church.

Smith, of Atlanta, worked in daily newspapers before embarking on a career
in church communications. In 1983, she was named news director of the
Georgia United Methodist Communications Council, a cooperative agency
created the year before by the North and South Georgia annual conferences.