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Floor Speech

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I wish to recognize LaShawnda Smith on her retirement after 29 years of service with the Senate Appropriations Committee.

LaShawnda first joined the committee in 1993 as a detailee from the Department of Veterans Affairs, working on what was then the Subcommittee on the VA, Housing and Urban Development, and Independent Agencies. She later accepted a role at the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Office of Congressional Affairs. It was not long, however, until she would find herself back on the committee as a detailee, this time on loan from HUD.

LaShawnda eventually joined the committee full-time in 1995 under the leadership of then-Chairman Mark Hatfield and Vice Chairman Robert Byrd. Since then, LaShawnda has faithfully served under the Republican leadership of Senators Ted Stevens, Thad Cochran, Richard Shelby, and now me, providing support to the committee and its various subcommittees.

Anyone who has worked with LaShawnda knows what a dependable member of the Senate community she has been. She has helped the wheels of the Appropriations Committee move forward in service to the American people throughout her career. LaShawnda will be missed by her colleagues and friends, and she deserves this Chamber's collective thanks for her dedicated work as she leaves to spend time with her family in Tennessee, including her daughters Dominique and Briana, two granddaughters Nyelah and Nyani, and two grandpups Lucci and Cairo.

The committee will miss LaShawnda's steady, stabilizing presence, and we wish her all the best in her well-deserved retirement from the Senate and in her new full-time role as a doting grandmother.

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