Wayne County native serves in White House
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on July 11, 2016 1:46 PM
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Christian Peele
When Christian Brookx Peele was a young student in Goldsboro, she couldn't have imagined one test would pave the way for her to work at the White House.
"I went to preschool, I think it was at First Baptist Church, elementary at North Drive and did a year at Carver Heights and then I did middle (school) at Greenwood," she said.
In seventh grade, like thousands of students around the country, she was given the chance to take the SAT test early to determine aptitude as part of Duke University's Talent Identification Program (TIP).
"I ended up doing exceptionally well," she said.
So well that different schools began to recruit her. Including the prestigious Mary Baldwin College for the Exceptionally Gifted.
"I remember getting the letter, 'How would you like to start college early?'" she said. "I thought to myself, I'm definitely doing that.
"I had never seen anyone who looks like me doing something like that. My parents encouraged me to consider it anyway. Thank God I did."
She was 13 when she "graduated" from Greenwood Middle School.
"I think I received a certificate. I didn't have a high school diploma," she said.
Mary Baldwin, in Virginia, each year accepted a small cohort of early admission girls, between the ages of 14 and 16.
"I immediately fell in love with the campus, the other girls, the other students I met and fell in love with the prospect of finally feeling challenged, building on the education I had already gotten with Wayne County Schools," she said. "I went off for the first time in my life. I was academically challenged -- I had to learn how to study, how to engage professors.
"I still regard that as one of the most important things I have done."
She graduated with honors from Mary Baldwin's college program in 2005, at age 17, with a bachelor of arts degree in religion.
She became the youngest person to earn a master of divinity from Duke University Divinity School, at age 20.
Now director of stewardship and development at The Riverside Church in New York City, she works with a team responsible for the development of the church's multimillion-dollar charitable giving effort.
But in between, she amassed some impressive credentials, including a stint at the White House.
She applied for, and received, a coveted internship in 2009, in the White House Office of Management and Administration.
"I finished that in early 2010 and went and worked for a non-profit and then was invited back after a year (to the White House) as director of the internship program," she said.
Her first staff role within the Obama administration, she worked as director from 2011-2013.
For the next year and a half after that, she served as deputy director for operations at the White House, working on matters related to budget, technology and facilities.
"That was an amazing experience, also one of the most incredible things I have ever done. One of the most formidable things I have ever done," she said. "I have never worked so hard in my entire life."
It was essentially, she said, an opportunity to "work alongside people who will be the next great leaders of the world."
Last year, 10 years since graduating from Mary Baldwin College, Miss Peele was chosen by the Class of 2015 as the alumna they would most like to hear speak at commencement.
A few weeks ago, she received an honorary doctor of humane letters degree from Heidelberg University in Ohio after delivering the baccalaureate sermon.
The daughter of Dennis Peele of Goldsboro and Isolene Peck of Durham just takes it all in stride, occasionally reflecting on the journey.
"What I know now at 28 is that I did something unusual," she said. "I didn't realize how unusual it was at the time."
For more than a year, she has been living in New York, where her job has been closer to what she studied in divinity school.
"I never would have anticipated that my path would take me back to the church proper," she said recently.
"You can always count on life and God to steer you.
"The job has been good for me, allowed me to use both my training in management and my passion for ministry."
The circuitous route she has taken, though, always leads back to her hometown, she says.
"I'm so proud to be from Wayne County. That's my heritage. I was born and raised there," she said.
"As much as I travel, I think the elements that make me speak and able to engage, and my faith, all of that was culminated in Wayne County."