Cardiologist to address Ashdown High alumni
An Ashdown, Ark., native who became a cardiologist and helped establish the Arkansas Heart Hospital will be the guest speaker during the seventh annual Ashdown High School Alumni Banquet on Oct. 12.
Dr. David Smith will the honored guest during the homecoming weekend alumni banquet.
The banquet will be in the Ashdown High School cafeteria. Doors will open at 4:30 p.m. for visiting.
Smith started his education in a one-room school at Fomby in Little River County.
He graduated from Ashdown High School in 1963 and attended Harding University in Searcy, where he was elected president of the Student Association.
Smith graduated from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Mo., and joined the faculty at UAMS.
He helped establish the largest cardiology group in Arkansas, with 31 cardiologists.
Smith also served as chief of cardiology at Baptist Health Systems in Little Rock.
He also became an instructor in bioethics at Harding University.
Smith has served on the board of directors of the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity and works on projects dealing with medical ethics with the Arkansas State Medical Society.
Smith changed careers in 2012 and is now certified in supportive and palliative medicine. He is director of that program at Baptist Medical Center in Little Rock.
In 1990, he helped create and continues as board chairman of the Haiti Christian Development Project to improve living conditions in Haiti, which is listed as the fourth-most undernourished country in the world.
For additional information about the banquet or to purchase tickets, contact Betty Ruth McDowell Kidd at 870898-8391, Sandra Shackelford Furlow at 870-898-6803, Susan Setliff Simmons at 870898-3851 or Castle Antiques in Ashdown.
Tickets are $25 and sales end Oct. 4.
Proceeds will be used for scholarships for Ashdown High School seniors.