(Died: March 2, 2022)
Lena Smith Knight would be the first to tell you that she LOVED every day she worked for the Cooperative Extension Service…AND…she NEVER had a boring day! Few can say the same about a career that spanned some 30 years.
Her Extension career actually began in 1961, when she worked as an ACES Editorial Assistant compiling and editing research-based articles for the state’s newspapers.
In 1964, she was appointed an Extension Home Agent and work with 4-H Clubs and homemakers groups in Talladega County. In 1971, she continued her Extension career in Jefferson adapting the traditional mission of Extension to the vastly different urban audiences in Birmingham’s every changing metro area. As a result, weekly radio and TV presentations were scheduled which offered timely life skill educational information to the public.
Extension established six Family Money Management Centers in 1989. The Jefferson center offered solutions to the financially stressed through one-on-one conferences and public seminars focusing on credit/debt management.
In an effort to assist women who were re-entering the workplace, Smith and her Tuscaloosa County counterpart, conducted all-day seminars entitled “WOMEN’S WORLD” in six urban areas in the state. Topics included financial, time and stress management, and dressing professionally for the workplace.
In 1993, she was appointed Jefferson County’s first female County Agent Coordinator. She retired in 1995 after 30 years with Cooperative Extension.
During her career, she served as president of the Alabama Home Economics Association, the Alabama Association of Extension Home Economists, and was selected as AHEA’s first Extension Home Economist of the Year. Other honors included Outstanding Alumni Awards from both Auburn University and the University of Alabama.
Smith credited her accomplishments and career highlights to the visionary thinking and encouraging leadership she received from the Home Economics district and state staffs. She was always grateful that they not only recognized her strengths, her abilities, her talents but also encouraged her to use them effectively to meet the needs of Extension audiences.
In recognition of her years of service, the name Lena Smith Knight is inscribed on the dedicatory plaque of the Extension Memorial Chapel.
Chapel Plaque Inscription Number 663
