Kim Williams has always been good with numbers.
“It kind of comes naturally; I don’t know how else to explain it,” she said. “I do like numbers. ... I think it’s something like a gift, and I say that because my father and mother are gifted with it, but it runs on my mother’s side.”
Williams
Williams said it’s the same for both of her children: “My daughter enjoys math as well as my son.”
Williams learned how to crunch numbers growing up in her parents’ family business, Henderson’s Grocery, which was at the corner of Avenue G and Percy Street.
“My parents formed that, and they were in business for well over 25 years right here in Greenwood,” she said.
She and her sisters would help out at the business by “working with numbers, calculating and adding. ... It’s something we grew up doing, and I just got interested in it at that time.”
Williams, 55, turned her interest in math into her career. Now she uses her talents to serve Greenwood as its city clerk. She has held this position since June of 2018.
Williams has a staff of deputy clerks, and the Office of the City Clerk is responsible for the city’s accounting functions, including payroll, budgeting, annual auditing and maintaining tax rolls, as well as voter registration, maintaining minutes and dockets, issuing privilege licenses and certain permits and other functions.
“It’s the financial hub of the city of Greenwood,” said Williams. “Anything that has to do with something financially, it comes through our office, and our office processes and does paperwork for most of the grants the city has also.”
The clerk serves as the chief financial officer for the city, and Williams enjoys the job.
“I like that every day is a different challenge and having the opportunity to meet and greet different customers and everybody who is coming in and out of the office,” she said.
Williams also enjoys being able to be an asset to her hometown: “I was born and raised in Greenwood.”:
Williams is a graduate of Greenwood High School. She received an associate’s degree from Mississippi Delta Community College and a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Mississippi Valley State University.
After graduating from Mississippi Delta, she moved away in 1987 and lived in several places. She moved back to Greenwood in 1999.
Williams also served as deputy clerk in the Office of the City Clerk in Greenwood for seven years. Before coming back to City Hall in her current position, she worked for the state Division of Medicaid for five years.
Williams has two children — Lakedric Henderson of San Antonio and Arnesha Williams of Memphis. “I’m proud that they are both registered nurses,” she said.
Her daughter has one child, Titus, and her son has four children: Nyashia, Cedric, Jayda and Lakeldric.
“I love being a grandmother,” Williams said. “That’s a blessing to be able to enjoy my grandkids.”
Williams is an active member of New Foundation Missionary Baptist Church.
What she enjoys most of all is spending time with her family, and they are very close.
“We have family prayer every Tuesday,” she said.
This is when members of her family who reside in Greenwood come together to pray and share a meal. “We’ve been doing that well over 10 years, at least,” she said.
The family recently celebrated Christmas with a unique holiday tradition called “pass it on.”
“The older generation will pass on their gifts and try to explain to the younger generations our gifts and our talents and try to encourage the younger generations to cultivate their gifts,” said Williams.
She said the gifts are what “God has blessed you with,” such as singing or cooking, and each person shares his or her gifts with the rest of the family.
Williams also enjoys traveling with her sisters.
“I love to travel to different places,” she said. “We just pick a place and do a sisters’ trip. We come up with a place we’ve never been or seen before.”
Williams and her sisters travel together once a year. One of their recent trips was to Florida, where she attended the graduation of her granddaughter, Nyashia.
The sisters have been traveling together annually for about 10 years, and “we used that as our sisters’ trip this year,” she said.
In January, they will make a weekend trip to Nashville, Tennessee, to celebrate Williams’ birthday.
She said she likes “spending time with family and family oriented activities, and we do that quite a bit.”
•Contact Ruthie Robison at 581-7235 or rrobison@gwcommonwealth.com.
