The Portland Beacon Welcomes Jordan D. Smith as Contributor

The Portland Beacon is proud to announce that Jordan D. Smith has joined our team as a regular contributing writer. Jordan will be writing a couple of pieces for us each month.

Originally from the Cadillac area, Jordan moved to Portland in 2009, when he was hired as a high school science teacher at St. Patrick Catholic School. He still teaches at the school today.

Jordan has been a guest columnist in multiple publications, and was the co-author of a piece published in the Journal of Chemical Education.

Jordan graduated Cum Laude from Spring Arbor University, where he studied Biology, Chemistry and Secondary Education. He also took graduate level courses at Michigan State University in Biological Sciences.

When asked why he thought local journalism was important for our community, Jordan said, "In order to be engaged citizens, we have to know what is going on in our community. How can we know what local government policy issues we care about if we aren't aware that those issues are being discussed in the first place? How can we know what local charities we wish to support by giving of our time and money if we don't even know about the need? Local journalism is a critical factor in forming informed citizens, and an engaged community."

Jordan’s first piece for the Beacon was about local church Christmas celebrations and was posted on December 22nd. His second piece was on the City of Portland snow removal ordinance and was posted on January 7th.

Jordan can be reached at jordan.d.smith.1@gmail.com.