{"id":52241,"date":"2024-12-03T14:41:38","date_gmt":"2024-12-03T19:41:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=52241"},"modified":"2024-12-03T14:41:55","modified_gmt":"2024-12-03T19:41:55","slug":"amber-smith-to-lead-polk-communications-division","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/12\/03\/amber-smith-to-lead-polk-communications-division\/","title":{"rendered":"Amber Smith to Lead Polk Communications Division"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

County Manager Bill Beasley announced the confirmation of Amber Smith as Director of Polk County\u2019s Communications Division today following her appointment by the Board of County Commissioners.<\/p>\n\n\n

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As Communications Director, Smith oversees a budget of approximately $1.2 million, 20 employees, and the Communications Division\u2019s daily operations. Smith will report directly to Deputy County Manager Ryan J. Taylor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are very excited to have Amber leading our Communications team,\u2019\u2019 Beasley said. \u201cShe brings more than 25 years of communications, marketing, and public relations experience to the position. She also has previous experience leading in a county government communications role with Osceola County.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to overseeing the Communications Division team and internal and external communications, Smith will also serve as the Executive Producer of PGTV, the county\u2019s cable access television operations and video production services for county divisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith brings her experience in corporate, internal, and external communications, community relations, marketing, and media relations to her new role. She has most recently served as the Community Relations Manager for the AdventHealth Polk County market and previously served in a senior communications capacity for the hospital system for the past eight years. Before working in the healthcare industry, Smith spent 10 years handling communications and canvassing board duties for the Osceola County Supervisor of Elections Office. She started her professional career as a reporter at the St. Petersburg Times, Tampa Bureau and worked for several newspapers before coming back to Polk County and working as the East Polk County reporter covering local governments for The Ledger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith is a proud graduate of Leadership Polk Class XV as well as the Northeast Polk Chamber of Commerce Leadership Class IX. She is currently serving as the Past President of the Northeast Polk Chamber of Commerce. Smith is a 2023 graduate of the Polk Vision Public Service Leadership Class and is currently a member of the Inside Polk County School Board Class III. She is also a member of the Haines City\/Northeast Polk Rotary Club and currently serves on several local high school advisory boards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith earned a bachelor\u2019s degree in journalism from Eastern Illinois University and completed her master\u2019s certification in election administration at Auburn University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

County Manager Bill Beasley announced the confirmation of Amber Smith as Director of Polk County\u2019s Communications Division today following her appointment by the Board of County Commissioners. As Communications Director,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52242,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"14","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNFwvMTJcL0FtYmVyLVNtaXRoLTEwMS1FZGl0LUVkaXQtQS53ZWJwP2ZpdD01MDAlMkM3NTEmc3NsPTEiLCJ0eHQiOiJBbWJlciBTbWl0aCB0byBMZWFkIFBvbGsgQ29tbXVuaWNhdGlvbnMgRGl2aXNpb24iLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImhpZ2h3YXkiLCJibG9nX2lkIjoxNjMwNDA2NjF9.xw2fi4hqvEmHvGa2UNhIlZhk_yCjFWE80vFXIMIApl4MQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":52242,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Amber-Smith-101-Edit-Edit-A.webp","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52241"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52243,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52241\/revisions\/52243"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}