Native son returns home
Published 7:06 pm Friday, June 14, 2019
WINDSOR – By a unanimous vote, the Bertie County Board of Education approved Dr. Otis Smallwood as the school district’s new superintendent.
The vote came this afternoon (Friday) during a special called meeting of the Bertie County Board of Education.
Dr. Otis Smallwood speaks before a meeting of the Bertie County School board on Friday, June 14 after he was named as the county’s new superintendent. He is a native of Indian Woods and a Bertie High grad. Staff Photo by Gene Motley
Smallwood, a native of Indian Woods in western Bertie, succeeds Dr. Catherine Edmonds who is leaving for a similar post with Elizabeth City-Pasquotank County Schools at the end of the month.
Smallwood, in addition to being a native of the county, is a 1989 graduate of Bertie High School and he later attended Elizabeth City State and East Carolina before acquiring his doctorate from Nova Southeastern University.
Originally on staff with Bertie County Schools, Smallwood has spent the past 11 years with the Jones County school system.
“I’m just more than excited and it’s just very humbling, and an honor that I was selected to come back,” Smallwood said at his introduction. “I look forward to doing the things that will help our children to excel.”
There will be more on Dr. Smallwood in the Wednesday June 19 print edition of the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald.