“Mrs. Reason” Brings Her Drive to Public Safety

Towson, MD — As Special Assistant to Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services Secretary Stephen T. Moyer, June Smith intends to permeate her “dot the i and cross the t” style throughout the state agency with the largest number of employees.

“Complacency is not a good place to be,” Smith said. “People have been doing things the same way for a long time because that’s the way they’ve always been done. Secretary Moyer is working diligently to make the department more efficient and effective.”

Smith is the widow of longtime WBAL-AM radio talk show host Ron Smith, who carried the moniker “the Voice of Reason.” She, in turn, was dubbed “Mrs. Reason” to listeners, a tag that now takes a whole new meaning in her department role.

“There are some days when I have to be ‘Mrs. Reason,’” Smith said. “Part of our goal is to change the culture.”

Smith is making a return to state government, where she formerly served as executive director of communications for the Department of Juvenile Services under former Governor Robert Ehrlich. That’s where she met Moyer, then deputy secretary of Juvenile Services, and became an avid member of the team she dubbed “Moyer’s Warriors.”

“She has the innate ability to anticipate my next steps, multi-task, and perform duties of a broad scope and complexity at the highest level,” Moyer said.

Ron Smith, who hosted his radio show at WBAL for 28 years and wrote a weekly column for the Baltimore Sun, has been gone for four years now, but has not been forgotten.

“So many people in state government remember Ron and share their memories with me. Ron’s shows were provocative and provoking. He didn’t want people to think the way he did,” Smith said, “he just wanted people to think.”

June Smith established the Ron Smith Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund at the Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center. She has raised more than one half million dollars to date.