When Joyce Perdue-Smith thinks about her childhood in Cave Spring, she remembers the Georgia School for the Deaf campus where her dad Eugene Perdue was the director for more than three decades and the small town charm. “Cave Spring was a nice place to grow up. Everybody knew everybody, which was nice. Of course, that very thing could get you in trouble too,” she says laughing as she strolls through the quaint downtown square marveling how the place still speaks to her heart.

But the Cave Spring native (and CSH valedictorian) left after college and spent her life and career as an accounting and financial professional in Fortune 500 companies and state government in the Midwest before returning to the Atlanta area. Then in 2009 she came home to Floyd County to support her parents.

She jumped back into being part of the community by launching a nonprofit that’s now her passion — the Fairview and E.S. Brown Restoration Project that aims to save and restore the former site of the area’s historical black school. “It is important because it will preserve the life-affirming African-American educational, cultural and historical experiences of the early 1900s.”

Those who know Joyce see her has the consummate executive, always dressed to the nine. So it might surprise some that in high school she aspired to be a “Susie Homemaker” and took four years of home economics. “I was awarded the Ms. Betty Crocker trophy.”

And her connection to the E.S. Brown School was more than just that it was her dad’s first school as a principal. “ I was elected Ms. E.S. Brown in the sixth grade and rode in a float in the Christmas parade.”

And now we know where her fashion sense was born too. “I was crowned Ms. Fashionetta by the Rome-Cedartown chapter of the AKA Sorority.”

This professed workaholic finds it hard to fathom what we dub “leisure” time.

But we finally got her to confess: “I enjoy bad comedies, and live to watch re-runs of all five of the “Rocky” sequels, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”, “True Lies”, “As Good As It Gets”, and “Shenandoah”.

For aspiring leaders, she advises, “A career is a step ladder. Stand at the top of your success ladder. Surround yourself by capable individuals. Set the vision, be decisive, act with resolve, plan ahead, and protect your subordinates. Give others the opportunity to climb the ladder, just as someone gave the same to you. It is through helping others that you help yourself.”

And that might best sum up Joyce herself.