Posted on Jun 8, 2006 | by Staff

GREENSBORO, N.C. (BP)--U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is scheduled to speak in person to Southern Baptist Convention messengers in Greensboro, N.C., Wednesday, June 14, at 10 a.m. EDT, SBC President Bobby Welch said June 8.

Rice has served as secretary of state since January 2005, and prior to that served as national security advisor to President Bush. Before coming to Washington, Rice was provost for six years at Stanford University, where she also taught political science and is tenured.

"We are grateful that we can hear personally from such an articulate spokesperson for our nation," Welch told Baptist Press. "Not only will messengers receive a first-hand report on our nation, but undoubtedly they will be encouraged by Secretary of State Rice's personal journey of faith. Being reared in a Christian family alongside a pastor father, she will feel right at home among Southern Baptists from all over the world."

Rice has authored or co-authored "Germany Unified and Europe Transformed," "The Gorbachev Era" and "Uncertain Allegiance: The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army."

She also served in the first Bush administration in the National Security Council and as a special assistant to the president for national security affairs.

Born in 1954 in Birmingham, Ala., Rice has a bachelor's degree from the University of Denver, a master's degree from the University of Notre Dame and a Ph.D. from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver.
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