Extension specialist chosen for state tourism board

STARKVILLE, Miss. -- An Extension specialist with the Mississippi State University Extension Center for Government and Community Development has been appointed to the state’s tourism board.

Rachael Carter was selected as an at-large member of the Mississippi Tourism Association Marketing Advisory Board Oct. 15 by Governor Tate Reeves. She will serve on the committee for the remainder of Reeves’ term.

Carter’s Extension specialties include community development, downtown revitalization, tourism, economics and natural resources policy. She also teaches a Foundations of Tourism course at MSU.

She is a previous recipient of the 2025 Excellence in Research Award by the Southern Rural Sociological Association and is a board member for the Alabama-Mississippi-Tennessee Rural Tourism Conference. The conference trains from 150 to more than 200 tourism and economic development stakeholders, provides scholarship opportunities and fosters a collaborative effort in growing local economies through rural tourism development.

She has also received the Agnes Zaiontz Rural Tourism Leadership Award, which recognizes a significant contributor to tourism in the Alabama-Mississippi-Tennessee tri-state area.

Carter and GCD colleague William Poindexter coordinate MSU Extension’s Excellence in Tourism Leadership Program, held in collaboration with the Mississippi Tourism Association, which recently graduated its third cohort at the Mississippi Governor’s Conference on Tourism. The two-year program has had 61 participants from 23 communities.

For more information about the GCD and its services and educational programs, visit https://gcd.extension.msstate.edu.