VALDOSTA STATE MAGAZINE 41 Sara Beth Hobbs PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEER College of the Arts, Class of 2017 On Feb. 12, 2017, Sara Beth Hobbs of Douglas, Georgia, logged in to her Facebook page and shared a surprising announcement with her family and friends. 鈥淚 am so very thankful to say that I have been accepted into the Peace Corps,鈥� she wrote. 鈥淚 will be serving in Sierra Leone. I cannot express how amazing this opportunity will be for me. I could not have done this without the amazing support of my mother, Kimberly Killingsworth Hobbs. Without her, I do not know where I would be in life. Also, I would like to thank Staci Lawhorne [鈥� a 2016 Valdosta State University Department of Art and Design alumna 鈥擼 for believing in me and for being there for me through this entire process. Again, I cannot express how thankful I am to have this amazing experience.鈥� Hobbs graduated from VSU with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in art on May 6, 2017. Two months later, she boarded the first of three planes, this one bound for Washington D.C., home of Peace Corps headquarters. The next leg of her journey took her to Brussels, Belgium, followed by Freetown, Sierra Leone, which is located in West Africa. Within a few days, Hobbs logged back in to her Facebook page and shared an update. 鈥淚 cannot explain how blessed I feel to be a part of this Peace Corps group,鈥� she wrote. 鈥淗owever, it has not all been sunshine and WRITTEN BY HUNTER POPE & JESSICA R. POPE Sara Beth Hobbs announced in February 2017 that she had been accepted into the Peace Corps. She will live, work, and serve in Sierra Leone through September 2019. Photo: Manbinty Bangura, one of Hobbs鈥� host family mamas.