The Blount Education Initiative has selected its first executive director, Bonny C. Millard, to provide day-to-day leadership for its efforts, Mark Cate, chairman of the Initiative’s Executive Committee, announced Tuesday.

The initiative hopes to raise the level of awareness about the importance of education and to make it the community’s No. 1 priority. The initiative developed out of Maryville College and Leadership Blount’s 2006 Leadership Summit from a group of educational professionals, business leaders and community leaders who wanted to capture the energy that the summit fostered.

“We feel that if education is made the No. 1 priority, most of the other issues facing our community can be resolved,” Cate said.

After months of meeting on a regular basis, the group put together strategies of how to pursue its goals and also began the search for someone who could lead the organization as the executive director.

Millard is the former assistant city editor at The Daily Times, where she worked for more than three years as the education reporter. Millard covered all three public school systems: Alcoa, Blount County and Maryville; as well as Maryville Christian School and Maryville College. She has won numerous awards for her reporting from state and regional journalism organizations in Tennessee and Virginia.

During her tenure at The Daily Times, she wrote about educational issues facing our community and highlighted different programs offered in the schools. She established and developed relationships with school board members, administrators, teachers and other staff members.

Cate said Millard’s knowledge and relationships in the Blount education community made her a perfect match for the initiative.

“Bonny Millard has developed important relationships with school administrators, teachers and many of the school board members,” Cate said of her appointment. “We are excited to have Bonny coming on board and look forward to working with her in the years to come.”

Millard, a Blount County native, is the product of the two city school systems and has strong ties to the county system.

Millard will be responsible for putting together a campaign to promote education in the community and flesh out the organization’s goals. This grass-roots effort will bolster an already strong educational tradition in the Blount community.

The initiative is privately funded by local businesses and individuals. Millard’s office will be located at the Blount County Chamber of Commerce, 201 S. Washington St. Maryville, TN 37804-5728. The Blount County Chamber of Commerce has generously donated office space for this endeavor. She may be reached at (865) 273-1210 or at blounteducation@aol.com blounteducation@aol.com>.
ALCOA Inc., one of the initiative’s key strategic partners, will host a reception to introduce Millard to the community in the coming weeks. The public will be invited and details will be forthcoming.

Millard has a bachelor of arts in liberal arts with a major in political and a bachelor of science in communications with a major in journalism, both from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Millard has worked as a victim advocate with a police department in Columbia, S.C., as a public relations professional for a nonprofit and as a director for a mentoring program for at-risk children.

Story from The Daily Times