Meridian councilman George Thomas has been named a 2017 Leadership Fellow for the National League of Cities. Thomas, who serves Ward 1, has been on the council since 1985.

The principal mission of the Leadership Fellows is to support the League in its efforts to promote excellence and innovation in the arena of local government leadership development and local government leadership education.

The role of the fellows is: cultivating leaders within the organization; promoting NLC University offerings; peer networking and support among leaders committed to professional development; outreach to colleagues to promote NLC University offerings; increasing connections to state municipal league educational programming; field testing new educational platforms or learning models and providing feedback on the overall program. The fellows serve one year terms and this is the third term for Thomas, who is also serving on the Community and Economic Development federal advocacy committee.