Melody was born the fourth and last child to her mother Joyce and the only child of her father, George Smit, in SW Idaho where her father was a farmer and her mother and homemaker/bartender. After graduation Melody attended community college before transferring to Western Oregon University (then Western Oregon State College) where she earned a double major in Health Sciences and Psychology.
She then traveled for a years, her adventures took her across the US several times, including Alaska as well as Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania, which started a lifelong love of travel.
Returning back to academia Melody attended the University of Central Arkansas where she earned a MS degree in Health Education. During her graduate assistantship she was tasked with teaching freshman health 101 classes, and after a sleepless night of worry about what she would talk about for an hour and a half in the first class she taught, she found a love for teaching and for students specifically.
During her career, Melody worked in both the academic field teaching and working in research as well as teacher education training. She also made the jump to the non profit arena in the areas of drug and alcohol education and domestic violence/sexual assault advocacy.
After moving back to Idaho to assist her father in his final years, Melody reduced her teaching load by becoming adjunct faculty in order to spend more time with her father and during the pandemic gave up her in person classes and continued to teach online until her move to SC in December 2021.
Melody moved to SC to fulfill long term retirement plans and to be able to ride her horses all year round. Along with loving her horses, dogs, cats and chickens, Melody is a potter, loves wood working/furniture restoration and metal work.