There was a time when "the city manager wanted to run and hide when he saw me coming," said La Viece Smallwood, in the gentle lilt of her Southern drawl. "He knew I was coming to build a fire that he didn't necessarily want built."

In the small community of Macclenny, Fla., Sister Smallwood is known for her "fire building" ability.

"She's very community minded and has a mannerism that encourages others to participate," said her husband, Z. Vincent Smallwood, president of the Lake City Florida Stake. "She's very popular among the people and makes friends along the way. And she always has a few irons in the fire. She'll get going on a new project just as she's completing an earlier project. Sometimes, she juggles two or three projects at a time. Right now, she's helping raise nearly $300,000 for a new civic center."

In the recent past, she has spearheaded efforts to install park benches with trees and flowers along Main Street. She directed the Millennium pageant where 21 women ranging in ages from 65 to 90 years performed on stage. She organized a two-county homecoming event were an estimated 20,000 people attended. She started a dinner theater, helped organize the first historical society in the county, planned an International Sisterhood Conference where 800 women of various cultures shared their traditions.

For her efforts, she was recently given an award of merit by the mayor of Macclenny, Fla., for her outstanding community service.

If Sister Smallwood is not making history with her community projects, she's probably pounding out local history on her electric typewriter. After extensive oral interviews with many of the county's leading citizens, she wrote a nine-volume series of history titled: Once Upon a Time in Baker County.

Her prize writing, however, is a 200-page, two-volume set of the history of the Church in northern Florida. The title, Salt of the South, was taken from an address given by President Thomas S. Monson during a regional conference in northern Florida.

Another in a series of "Shining Moments." Illustration by John Clark.