Haley Montgomery values education

At the beginning of January, Haley Montgomery started her new role as the Director of Communications for the Starkville Oktibbeha School District.

In her role, Montgomery leads SOSD'S internal and external communications, public relations and brand management. She replaces Nicole Thomas, who she actually used to work for as an external contractor for about a decade through her business, Small Pond Graphics, which is a design and illustration freelance business.

When the position became open, SOSD Superintendent Tony Mcgee asked Montgomery to at least consider coming on full time, but there were some things she took into account before she made her decision.

“When I first started my business, my children were really little, and so that flexibility of working in my own office and setting my own hours gave me the flexibility to go and do things at their schools. But now they're in high school, so I don't see them as much. They're going off everywhere on their own. So it kind of made sense to do the transition,” Montgomery said.

With her being on the job for a month now, Montgomery says she's been making the most of the grind of the adjustment period into her new role.

“I tell a lot of people I've been drinking from the fire hydrant because I think anytime there's a transition period and we went about two months without a director so I filled in to do some things during that time period, I think we had things that normally would have been planned but there was nobody really in that position. So when I first started, there were just a lot of extra things,” said Montgomery. “But I think we're kind of getting into a stride now, and I've really been enjoying it … There's a lot about what we do for the district that I'm really familiar with as far as our branding, our graphics, and our message. But as far as people, it's given me a really good chance to get to interact with them more than I ever have.”

A native of West Point, Montgomery was raised by a father who was a public school principal and a mother who was a school teacher, so she is all familiar with the education setting.

“Public school has been a part of my life for a very long time,” she said.

After she graduated high school, Montgomery went to Mississippi State University for her collegiate studies. Once she got her degree, she never left. When asked what it was that kept her in Starkville, Montgomery credits Starkville's popular “small town feel,” which is a feeling she grew up with in West Point.

“It's an environment where you can get to know people very easily. But at the same time, with the university and the international families who come in for that, there's just a lot of diversity also,” said Montgomery. “It's a little bit of a mix of sort of a bigger place and also the small, and I've always really loved that.”

With her design and illustration freelance business Small Pond Graph

ics, Montgomery works on graphic design, mainly in illustration. While she still does work with that, she does not as much as before now that she's working full time at SOSD.

In her free time, Montgomery likes to spend time with her parents, her children, or with her art.

“I love all things art, so I enjoy experimenting with different things like that,” said Montgomery. “I spend a lot of time sort of taking care of my parents; they have some properties, and they're of the age where they need help with different things. So I do some things with them. I sort of adopt my children's hobbies, because once you get to this age with them, they're all in different directions. So I've tapped into the things that they're interested in, and that keeps me pretty busy.”

If you see Haley around town, be sure to tell her hello.

This article is part of an ongoing, weekly series titled Know Your Neighbor. If you wish to be featured in a future Know Your Neighbor or know of someone you’d like to see in a future article, please email us at editor@ starkvilledailynews.com.