[Biographical information on Benjamin L. Smith]

              BENJAMIN L. SMITH
Benjamin L. Smith is a native of Caldwell County, North
Carolina, He is the son of Waightstill Monroe and Isabelle Courtney
Smith (both deceased.) He is the nephew of the late Reverend Robert
Marshall Courtney. His wife, Pearl, is the daughter of the late
Reverend Robert Sidney Abernethy. He has two children: Benjamin Lee
Smith, Jr., and Mary Blair Smith.
His education was received in the public schools, Rutherford
College, Trinity College, and Duke University.
Except for the duration of World War I, his professional
career has been devoted to public education. For the past twenty years
he has been the Superintendent of the Greensboro City Schools. He is a
member and has been elected to positions of leadership in many scholarship
and professional organizations and fraternities, He has served the
National Council of Christians and Jews, the North Carolina Council of
Churches, and in an advisory capacity a number of educational institutions,
including; Rutherford College, Brevard College, Duke University, Palmer
Memorial Institute, Guilford College, Greensboro College, High Point
College, Appalachian State Teachers College, and the University of North
Carolina. He has served as Chairman of a Discussion Group of the American
Association of School Administrators on "Moral and Spiritual Values in
the Public Schools."
Through the years Ben Smith has been an active member of the
Methodist Church. He has been Sunday School teacher, Superintendent of
Sunday School, Steward, member of the Western North Carolina Conference
Board of Missions and Church Extension, and has served in other positions
of leadership. He has spoken often throughout western and central North
Carolina on Layman's Day, on Race Relations Day, and on other special
occasions, His life is dedicated to the unification of education and
religion.
A number of biographical collections have included his name:
Who's Who in Methodism, Who's Who in Education, Leaders in Education,
and Who's Who in the South and Southwest,