Alonda Thomas joined host and business owner, Michelle Salvant for another spectacular Media Monday. Thomas is the current Director of Public Relations at Howard university. An alumna of Florida A&M University, she has partnered with multiple well-known media streams such as BET, CAA, and TV One.
Within the interview Thomas spoke about the wonders of what goes on behind the scenes, as we all know being in Public Relations means to help bring forth a story that we are passionate about to the public. Thomas mentioned how she would struggle going back and forth between career paths. “I’ve gone back and forth between higher education and entertainment PR both were passions of mine,” Thomas said. “It was one of my mentors at FAMU who introduced me to higher education PR.”
As Thomas dove into her inspiring testimony in the interview, she touched base on how she went back to Florida State for her master’s degree. “I took that grad school experience and used it as a way to kind of leverage and get some experience working out in California one semester.” Thomas spoke about how she worked for BET and working on the last season of the show “Ghost Whisper”. “I got to work on film projects for TD Jakes, he had the sparkle movie and jumping the broom coming out at that time.” Thomas said, “It’s been a wide range of different opportunities, going back and forth between higher education and entertainment PR.”
Thomas gave great advice on how people never know where life is going to take them and how people will never know what skills they may need later in life. Thomas expressed how FAMU does a good job with setting the students up for success. Thomas also pointed out that due to the pandemic it has been a challenge, but that at Howard they have found creative ways to communicate with their stake holders. “Our social platforms have become an extension of us being able to tell our stories and get our message out,” Thomas continued. “We’ve been really fortunate to have a leadership team that is very strong.” Thomas also spoke about how she felt driven to write about a student at Howard who was courageous enough to donate bone marrow to someone who needed it, but unfortunately it would require her not to play volleyball which is what she went to Howard to do. “We wrote that story, and were able to get our local ABC affiliate to write about it.” Thomas stated, “Before we knew it, national news networks , world news, etc. were all calling wanting to do her story.”
Thomas Shared a lot of gems and information that would be helpful to young up and coming students that are coming into the field of Public Relations. Thomas mentioned that people should tell stories that are important to them and let them go viral on their own.