A winning smile and remarkable customer service is what led Jennifer Crawford, who works at KFC in Selma, to be nominated and then awarded as the March 2013 Selma-Dallas County Chamber of Commerce Retail Committee Rising Star.

Crawford has worked at KFC in Selma for the last 27 years, primarily waiting on customers and working the drive thru window.

“It just feels so wonderful,” Crawford said after receiving the award Monday morning. “I love it and I love KFC. I like being around people and I like greeting them and making them feel good and making them enjoy the food that they eat here.”

Crawford’s attitude on the job is one Sheryl Smedley, executive director of the Selma-Dallas County Chamber of Commerce, said landed her the nomination.

Smedley said a woman nominated Crawford after visiting KFC when she was feeling down.

“She said that she had been ill and going through some troubled times and came by KFC to get something, and said you just made her turn her whole outlook on her life around,” Smedley explained to Crawford. “She says, ‘If I’m having a moment, I come by even if it’s just for a soda just to see your smiling face. She said all I see is her big smile and it just brightens my day.’ And I see what she’s talking about now.”

Crawford said it’s the people and good work environment that keeps her going, adding that she is glad to know people enjoy her customer service because it’s something she can’t help but love providing.

“It doesn’t surprise me at all,” Mark Woodson, owner of KFC in Selma said of Crawford receiving the award. “She and I have grown and learned together about this business and she’s top notch. It doesn’t surprise me at all that she would get that acknowledgement.”

Woodson said he is so glad to have someone like Crawford working at KFC, especially for her work in the drive thru lane.

“She works the drive thru primarily during the day, because that’s an important part of our business,” he said. “We have a lot of our business that goes through the drive thru and I make sure to keep her there because she’s good and nice and [she] really helps our business thrive.”

Woodson added that before Crawford came to work at KFC, she used to baby sit him.

“She’s always been a part of my life,” he said with a smile. “I’ve never known life with out her.”