Meet the 2025 IABC/SC Board of Directors
COLUMBIA, S.C. – The South Carolina chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC/SC) announces its new board of directors for 2025. Nine communications professionals from throughout South Carolina will lead the organization. The Board consists of both returning and new members. The long-standing organization, which provides thousands of business and communication professionals with an international knowledge-sharing community and network, is excited to announce its new leadership.
President | Bailey Lewis
Founder, Words First
Bailey Lewis is the founder of Words First Content Strategy and the Words First Communicators Membership, both of which help communications professionals grow a well-rounded digital skill set. With 15 plus years of experience in digital content strategy, user experience, and communications leadership, Lewis has honed a human-focused approach for creating content for digital spaces.
She has built, led, and taught UX and content strategy teams for organizations of all sizes across a range of industries. An international keynote speaker, award-winning author, and educator, Lewis’ ideas and approach have been featured by organizations like Adobe, Progress, the United States Senate, UXPA, and the University of South Carolina.
When she steps away from the digital world, as is necessary now and again, Lewis travels to interesting global destinations — following wherever her wanderlust and her stomach rumbles may take her.
President-Elect | Heather Singleton
Principal Consultant, Strategic Public Relations Consulting
New to the IABC/SC board, Heather Singleton has worked with public and private nonprofit organizations for nearly two decades. Born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina, she graduated with a political science degree from the University of South Carolina in 2010 and has since called the Midlands home.
Passionate about policy communications and strategy, Singleton has worked in public service and corporate sectors, focusing on brand strategy, facilitation and fund development. She is currently the principal consultant of Strategic Public Relations Consulting, a consultancy that supports nonprofit and political organizations with internal and external communications strategy.
Singleton finds purpose in helping others improve their professional skills to become the success stories that they were born to be. A member of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc., she believes in the power of serving her local community. She is a board member of the South Carolina chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators, City Year Columbia, and WellPartners Dental and Eye Clinic, and volunteers with her church and the Camden alumni chapter of her sorority. Singleton enjoys spending time with family and friends, traveling, and listening to music in her spare time.
Past President | Mary-Kathryn Craft
Director of Communications, South Carolina Association of Counties
Mary-Kathryn Craft is the director of communications for the South Carolina Association of Counties (SCAC), where she oversees strategic communications to elevate the message and brand of the organization dedicated to improving county government across the Palmetto State.
Before joining SCAC, she served as communications director for the South Carolina Bar. She has more than 20 years of experience in the communications and media relations field, where she has worked in higher education, public health and public affairs. Craft began her career in communications as a newspaper reporter in North Carolina. She is a graduate of the University of South Carolina and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Secretary | Derek Bedenbaugh
Communications Specialist, BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina
New IABC/SC board member Derek Bedenbaugh is a communications specialist in Corporate Marketing Communications at BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina. While at BlueCross, he has helped craft compelling messaging across multiple lines of business.
Before his role at BlueCross, Bedenbaugh worked in education and earned a Ph.D. in English from the University of South Carolina in 2018. He is committed to using his writing and research skills to help clients achieve their goals.
Vice President of Finance | Alison Shuman
Corporate Communications Coordinator II, Farm Bureau Insurance
Alison Shuman is a corporate communications coordinator II for Farm Bureau Insurance. Before joining Farm Bureau Insurance in 2007, Shuman was the scholastic press manager for the S.C. Scholastic Press Association (SCSPA) and the Southern Interscholastic Press Association. She was also the assistant director of the Carolina Journalism Institute.
Shuman is an active member of IABC/SC and the Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter Society of South Carolina. She has held numerous board positions, including president with IABC/SC and the CPCU Society of South Carolina, and currently serves on both boards. Shuman also served as vice president of awards and vice president of professional development on the IABC Southern Region Board of Directors.
She earned a Bachelor of Arts in advertising and a minor in retail from the University of South Carolina. During college, Shuman was part of the third-place national J. Carroll Bateman Competition Team known as Palmetto Solutions and the third-place national DMEF Echo Competition team for the ING Orange Savings campaign “Green Grass. Blue Sky. Orange Savings.”
A native of Columbia, S.C., she attended Irmo High School and was the editor-in-chief of The Stinger newspaper. In 2000, Shuman was recognized as SCSPA’s Journalist of the Year.
Vice President of Membership Development and Retention | Alan Jenkins
Senior Manager, Brand and Communications, Milliken & Company
Alan Jenkins, SCMP, is a husband and a father of two daughters. He began his career in journalism, learning the trade at a number of newspapers where versatility proved to be an enormous asset. He entered marketing in 2014 as a digital media specialist for a hospital system, where he learned to work with video and audio, social media communication, and script writing. While there, he also helped launch a health news website and created two viral videos. Today, he manages internal communications for Milliken & Company, a global manufacturer focused on materials science and sustainability.
In addition to this role with IABC/SC, Jenkins serves on the board of directors for the Hope Center for Children, an organization dedicated to building stable, healthy families and providing children a safe place from abuse and neglect. He is a proud member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Spartanburg, South Carolina. Jenkins is also a former councilman and mayor pro tempore for the City of Spartanburg, serving from 2017-2020, and a graduate of Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina.
Vice President of Professional Development | Celina Ortiz
Marketing Relations Communications Specialist, Dominion Energy
Celina Renae-Quintana Ortiz is a communications specialist for media relations at Dominion Energy. In her career, she has worked as a marketing coordinator at the El Paso Children’s Hospital and as a meteorologist/ journalist for the NBC station in El Paso, Texas (KTSM). In 2018 Ortiz earned her Bachelor of Arts in journalism and mass communications from New Mexico State University and continued her education in geoscience and broadcast meteorology in 2019 at Mississippi State University.
At KTSM, she covered major events including the 2019 Walmart shooting, the Texas Border Crisis, rising COVID-19 cases, and more. As part of KTSM’s Weather Authority Team, Oritz helped build a partnership with the National Weather Service, launch the station’s annual weather festival, and produce an Emmy-nominated special report. At the El Paso Children’s Hospital, she contributed to the marketing plans for COVID-19 vaccinations, the 10th Anniversary, and the hospital’s first Symposium on Cleft Lip and Palette Deformities. In 2023, she helped launch the Southeast Chapter of Dominion Energy’s ¡Hola! Employee Resource Group dedicated to attracting and retaining top Latino talent. She served as the group’s communications lead before becoming the president in 2024.
Vice President of Communications and Webmaster | Nikasha Dicks
Director of Marketing and Communications, Aiken Technical College
New to the IABC/SC board, Nikasha Dicks has nearly two decades of experience in the communications field, including print journalism, marketing, and public relations. She is currently the director of marketing and communications at Aiken Technical College in Graniteville, South Carolina, where her responsibilities include leading the college’s strategic marketing, branding, and communications activities, serving as the communications advisor to the college’s executive leadership team, and supporting strategic college initiatives.
In addition to IABC/SC, Dicks is an actively engaged member of several professional and community organizations including the National Council for Marketing and Public Relations (NCMPR), South Carolina Women in Higher Education, the South Carolina Technical Education Association, South Carolina Technical College System’s (SCTCS) Public Information Officer Peer Group, the Aiken Area Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Celebration Steering Committee, and Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. – Iota Lambda Zeta Chapter in Aiken, South Carolina, where she serves as the chapter’s historian and social media lead.
She has a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from Paine College and a master of business administration from Augusta University. Dicks is also a graduate of Leadership Aiken County and the SCTCS Leadership Academy.
In 2018, she received the NCMPR district two Rising Star Award, and in 2023, she was recognized by Paine College as one of its “40 Under 40” alumni honorees.
Member at Large | Cynthia South
General Manager, Aiken Symphony
Cynthia South was elected to the IABC/SC Board in 2014, attended the IABC National Leadership Institute, and served as president in 2018. She also served as vice chair for IABC’s Southern Region.
She is the general manager with the Aiken Symphony, where she manages several responsibilities, including community outreach.
Prior to her current role, South co-founded the Alison South Marketing Group, which later became the OSLA Agency, with offices in South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and South Florida. The full-service agency has won international, regional and statewide awards for its work. As a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism, South was a reporter, editor and photographer at the Columbia Missourian newspaper and later assumed an editorial position at Bobbin International, publisher of the textile industry’s management magazine, published in English and Spanish. She went on to become the Assistant Director of Media Relations and Spokesperson for the University of South Carolina.
After finishing her master’s degree in public administration at the University of South Carolina, specializing in health care, she became the director of public relations and marketing for Columbia’s Richland Memorial Hospital, now Prisma. Her healthcare career continued with similar positions at Greenville Hospital System and University of North Carolina Hospitals. With the drive of an entrepreneur, she later co-founded a statewide radio network, followed by establishing an advertising agency. South resides in Aiken, South Carolina, where she is program chair of the Aiken Noon Rotary Club and a member of the Chamber of Commerce.
###
About IABC/SC
IABC/SC links organizational, business communicators to a global network of communication professionals who develop, establish and adhere to the highest professional standards of quality and innovation in organizational/business communication. IABC/SC members gain access to a diverse network of 15,000 communication professionals in more than 80 countries worldwide, for unmatched networking and knowledge-sharing opportunities at events and online. Learn more at https://sc.iabc.com.