Greenville Woman Named Alumna of the Year at Mars Hill University

Mars Hill, NC (10/21/2022) — Kellye Smith Ratcliff of Greenville, South Carolina, is Mars Hill University's 2022 Alumna of the Year. The university honored her during last week's homecoming festivities with a dinner in her honor and a presentation at halftime of the homecoming football game.

Ratcliff is a graduate of the class of 1986 and is a member and former president of the Mars Hill University Alumni Board. She also served on the Presidential Search Committee and currently is serving on the steering committee for the Together We Rise capital campaign for a new campus center.

Ratcliff is a native of Mars Hill and a lifelong member of the university community. Her parents, Pat and Walter Smith, worked for the university for a combined six decades. Walter was a Mars Hill graduate, as were Ratcliff's sister and brother (her sister, Karen Smith, is a past Alumna of the Year recipient and a university trustee).

Ratcliff earned her bachelor's degree in business administration with a concentration in management and went on to earn an M.B.A. from Western Carolina University. She and her husband, Michael, own and operate a commercial cleaning and floor service company in Greenville and in the Williamsburg/Hampton/Newport News area of Virginia. The couple have three children and seven grandchildren.

Mars Hill University began presenting the Alumni of the Year Awards in 1953. Since then, nearly 150 alumni have been honored with the awards.

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Mars Hill University President Tony Floyd with 2022 Alumna of the Year Kellye Smith Ratcliff.