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Seleena Smith graduated from San Marcos High School in 1998. Ashley Landis

March 13, 2010

Seleena Smith traveling to Gambia to help children

By Jeff Walker Features Editor The San Marcos Record Sat Mar 13, 2010, 01:33 PM CST

San Marcos native Seleena Smith learned a lot from her late grandparents, Jewell and Alice Hemphill.

Her grandfather taught her to read on trips to Wuest’s, the old grocery store on Thorpe Lane, where she would spell out the sales hanging in the window. An employee at Gary Job Corps for more than 20 years, he instilled in her early the importance of going to school and making good grades.

From Alice, Smith received the giving, serving part of who she is today.

Seleena will take all those qualities with her when she travels across the world in May.

“I just feel really fortunate to participate and give back in such a good way. I really feel like it’s my purpose to serve and give to others,” Smith, now a doctoral student at the University of Oklahoma, said.

Smith is headed to Gambia with the group Women Empowering Nations to improve literacy skills and help develop self esteem in middle schoolers there. She’ll spend two weeks with the girls, working on creative writing, reading, public speaking and more.

“Our hopes are that we’ll give them the resources they need to help their community reach its full potential,” Smith said.

Smith graduated from San Marcos High School in 1998 in the top 10 percent of her class. She was also a member of First Baptist Church under the leadership of the late Reverend Glen Franklin, an institution she credits as a source of inspiration throughout her adolescence.

She went on to attend Howard University in Washington DC on a full-tuition scholarship, studying human development with a concentration in child and adolescent development, with a minor in psychology. In 2002 she became the first college graduate of her family, graduating magna cum laude with a bachelor of science.

Smith continued her academic career by earning a master’s of education in educational psychology in May 2004. That summer, she began the doctoral program in counseling psychology at the University of Oklahoma.

Her goal was to come home this spring to finish work on earning that doctorate.

“It’s funny how things never work out the way you planned. I expected to just be here, working on my dissertation,” Smith said.

But the opportunity to travel to Gambia crossed her desk several months ago. Carlisha Williams, the executive director of Women Empowering Nations, is a colleague of Smith’s at Oklahoma and sent her an e-mail about the trip. She says she was led by God to go: she’s not usually that type of spontaneous person.

But going to Africa has always been a dream for Smith.

“(Going to Africa) was always kind of a long term goal; when I was a professional and I could afford to do it. It’s truly a blessing to me that it came to me the way it did,” Smith said. “Being African American, I want to connect to our roots and our ancestors. I feel like the work that I do now is a way of honoring them and all that they went through,” Smith said.

After she earns her doctorate, Smith looks to return to San Marcos and “give back to the community the way they’ve given to me.” She’s been away from San Marcos since high school. She’s her mom’s only child, and says she’s ready to be back home.

But not before traveling across the world to help others.

“I know that I’ll come back changed,” SMith said of the Gambia trip. “This experience will make me feel empowered about what I can do, not only in this community, but globally.”

Something of which Jewell and Alice Hemphill would certainly be proud.

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