AASB OFFICERS INSTALLED AT 2009 CONVENTION
BIRMINGHAM – (December 2009) – Alabama school board members witnessed the installation of the officers they chose to lead the Alabama Association of School Boards that serves more than 800 school board members.
The new officers include: President Florence Bellamy of Phenix City, President-elect Steven T. Foster of Lowndes County, Vice President Katy Smith Campbell of Macon County and Immediate Past President Sue Helms of the Madison City Board of Education. They took office following AASB’s annual convention Dec. 3-5 at The Wynfrey Hotel in Birmingham.
AASB Executive Director Sally Howell says the association is fortunate to have a leadership team of this caliber with the knowledge, skills and experience necessary to support AASB’s mission to to produce excellent school board leaders by providing quality training, advocacy and services.
Florence Bellamy
Bellamy is the first Phenix City board member, third African American and fifth woman to serve as president since AASB’s founding in 1949.
A school board member since 1989, Bellamy formerly served the Phenix City Board of Education as vice president and board president. She has completed the four-level AASB School Board Member Academy and has earned distinction as a member of the academy’s Master’s Honor Roll.
The former AASB president-elect and vice president also served two terms as AASB District 4 director and has chaired or served on numerous AASB committees, including the Executive/Legislative, the Bylaws and the Budget and Finance committees. She has also received training through the National School Boards Association State Association Presidents’ Retreat and served on the NSBA Nominating Committee.
In 2001, AASB named Bellamy an All-State School Board Member, which is the association’s highest honor. In 2008, she received the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award from the Phenix City Education Foundation.
Professionally, Bellamy is supervisor of adult protective services for the Russell County Department of Human Resources. She is a past member of the Concharty Council of Girl Scouts and the Columbus-Phenix City Girls Club boards of directors. She serves on the Franchise Baptist Church Mission and Communion Board. She earned her bachelor’s degree in human services from Troy University and has an associate’s degree in secretarial science from Chattahoochee Valley Community College.
Steve Foster
Foster will automatically assume the presidency when Bellamy completes her term in December 2011.
Foster has long been an active member of AASB. He has served as AASB vice president, District 2 director and continues to serve on the Alabama Risk Management for Schools Board of Trustees and Legal Assistance Fund Board of Trustees. Foster has reached the master level of AASB’s School Board Member Academy and has served on several association committees. Most notably, he chaired the Budget & Finance Committee and also served on the Executive/Legislative Committee.
Foster’s leadership has extended to his local board. He has been vice president and president of the Lowndes County Board of Education, which he has been a member of since 1992. His civic duty is also fulfilled in his work with the governor’s Black Belt Action Commission and as a member of the Lowndes County Democratic Executive Committee and Fort Deposit Chamber of Commerce, which he served as president. He is minister of New Providence Church of Christ and previously worked as senior vice president of First Lowndes Bank.
Foster is an agent at Norman Insurance Service in Greenville, an adjunct professor at Faulkner University and a trustee for the Linda Y. Brooks Endowment Fund at Faulkner University. A graduate of the Alabama Banking School at the University of South Alabama, he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Auburn University Montgomery and an associate degree in accounting from Alabama Christian College. In addition, he has completed coursework toward a doctorate degree at the University of Alabama. He and his wife, Nancy, have two children, Rebecca and Travis. They live in Fort Deposit and attend the Fort Deposit Church of Christ.
Katy Smith Campbell
Campbell most recently served as director of AASB District 4. A member of the Macon County board since 2000, she served several years as board president. She is quite active in the association. This year, she chaired AASB’s Multicultural Committee and has also served on the Resolutions Committee. She has reached the master’s level of the association’s School Board Member Academy four times.
Campbell attended Tuskegee University and received her bachelor’s degree in biology from Fairleigh Dickinson University. She worked for more than 24 years in research and medical technology. She received her J.D. degree from Jones School of Law while employed as hematology supervisor at East Alabama Medical Center. In 2007, Campbell was the first to receive the Jones School of Law Black Law Students Association’s Outstanding Leadership Alumni Award.
Campbell is the founder and managing attorney at Katy Smith Campbell and Associates and a former partner in the law firm of Chestnut, Sanders, Sanders, Pettaway & Campbell, LLC. She also serves as Selma’s school board attorney.
Campbell was appointed by Alabama’s governor to the Commission on Instructional Improvement and Academic Excellence and the Governor’s Congress on School Leadership. For the Alabama State Bar, she has served on the Indigent Defense Committee, Pro Bono Task Force, as chair of the Access to Legal Justice Committee and as an appointee to the Legal Services Alabama Board.
She resides in Tuskegee with her husband, Omar. The former Alabama State PTA president and mother of five daughters has been an active member of the parent-teacher group for more than 25 years.
Campbell
Helms ended her two-year presidency following AASB’s 2009 convention. She had been the fourth woman and the first Madison board member to serve as president since AASB’s founding in 1949. To commemorate her dedication and service as president, Helms received AASB’s golden Past President’s Pin, along with a joint House/Senate resolution.
Helms has been a Madison board member since 1997 and is very active in the association. She has not only reached the master level of AASB’s four-level School Board Member Academy, but she is also listed on the Master’s Honor Roll of distinguished board members. She has been president-elect, vice president, District 9 director and has chaired or served on numerous AASB committees. Most notably, she has chaired AASB’s grassroots advocacy initiative, Leader to Leader; is a member of the association’s Executive/Legislative Committee; and previously served four terms on the Resolutions Committee, which proposes AASB’s legislative positions for the coming year.
Helms’ lobbying efforts on behalf of school boards and her constituency have taken her to Washington, D.C., to meet with Alabama’s congressional delegation and to the state Legislature to lobby key legislators. She has received training through the National School Boards Association State Association Presidents’ Retreat and has been tapped by NSBA for committee service. She has also served on the Governor’s “From the Capitol to the Classroom” Committee and the National Center for Learning and Citizenship’s Network of 100 District Leaders of Service Learning.
Prior to her membership on the city school board, Helms served on the Madison County Board of Education. Helms is a Leadership Alabama and a Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce Leadership Class graduate. In addition, she serves on the National Children’s Advocacy Center Board and the Madison County Mental Health Board.
The National School Boards Association is a not-for-profit coalition of state school boards associations across the United States. The Alabama Association of School Boards’ mission is to develop excellent school board leaders through quality training, advocacy and services. AASB, founded in 1949, enjoys 100 percent membership.
For additional information, contact AASB Director of Public Relations Denise L. Berkhalter at 334/277-9700 or PublicRelations@AlabamaSchoolBoards.org.
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