The City of Covington’s Civility Task Force awarded more Civility Awards at the March 18 city council meeting.

Two city employees were honored with the award: Kimberly Smith and Beth Ivey.

According to Smith, who chairs the task force, the Civility Award exists to boost morale among city employees. The award gives people ways to shout out their peers who are deserving of a little extra recognition.

Smith is a part of the city’s human resource staff and has worked for the city for four years. She is currently the Human Resources Employment Specialist, where she is responsible for hiring and onboarding city employees. This makes her face one of the first ones that new employees see when they come to work for the city.

Ivey has been with the city since 2012, and she is currently the Marketing and Multimedia Design Coordinator. She is stationed with the Tourism and Downtown Development Department, but she lends a helping hand in marketing and communications support across the city.

Crystal Stevens, accreditation and training supervisor at Covington-Newton County 911 and member of the Civility Task Force, presented Smith and Ivey with the awards at city council and read some of the details accompanying their nominations.

“[Smith] showed care and concern, ensuring they felt comfortable on their new team,” Stevens said. “She welcomed a new hire with a smile and kind words of encouragement. She is also patient, a good listener and dedicated to ensuring we all shine.”

Smith is also the Civility Task Force Coordinator, making her well-informed on the process and meaning of the Civility Award, which is awarded based on nominations from one’s coworkers. But even the coordinator found herself surprised by the nomination.

“It was a total surprise that some of my colleagues did submit my name in for doing a good job,” Smith said.

To Smith, civility is all about respect, honesty and being welcoming.

“Civility means to me is doing what you say, meaning what you say, and doing it in the right way to other people,” Smith said. “Showing respect to other people, listening to other people, honoring other people’s ideas. And just being truthful to other people and just being able to work with anybody and just welcoming their ideas and going forward just bringing it to fruition.”

Ivey also found herself honored and humbled to have received this nomination.

“I was very humbled to be recognized by my peers,” Ivey said. “If I had to step up and accept any award, this would be the one that I wanted to get because I was recognized by people that I admire and that I work side by side with every day and that I care a lot about.”

Stevens also told the council what behavior earned Ivey this recognition.

“[Ivey] always shows kindness, respect and consideration to others,” Stevens said. “She is described as the ultimate team player, putting others first with her servant-style work ethic. She makes everyone feel special with her positive attitude and friendly disposition.”

Ivey feels that practicing civility comes down to respect. She echoed the importance of three key qualities: kindness, respect and consideration.

“To me, civility is honoring and respecting our differences because we are all different, so we don’t need to just say ‘oh, we’re all the same’ because we’re not,” Ivey said. “But we need to honor and respect those differences. And we need to love each other because of our differences and we need to love each other through our similarities also. 

“And you might disagree with some things about a person, but that should not eliminate treating them with kindness and respect and consideration.”