A longtime Norfolk State University political science professor who died at age 78 on Christmas Eve had deep Smithfield roots.

Carol Pretlow, who taught for over 30 years at her postgraduate alma mater after earning a master’s degree in mass communications from Norfolk State and her juris doctorate and LLM international law degree from the American University Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C., began her professional life, oddly enough, in the fashion industry.

Pretlow, at age 29, represented Randel Modeling and Career Academy in Virginia Beach as a professional model at a “Miss Black America of Virginia Pageant” in 1976. A year later, she wrote her first “Fashion: Notes and Quotes” column for The Smithfield Times.

“High fashion? Not really. It’s just a game with everyone having a chance to play on a familiar field. No matter if you are eight, eighty or somewhere in between,” Pretlow wrote in her July 6, 1977, introductory column.

She was born on Nov. 9, 1946, to the late Kenneth and Vivian Hughes Pretlow, the latter a teacher of English and French at the former Georgie Tyler High School. Carol, in a 2013 Times interview, called her mother “my first role model.”

Vivian had stayed home to raise Carol until she was 13, and upon returning to teaching taught her daughter in high school. Carol, in her 2013 interview, had described Vivian as “very strict,” having once remarked to her daughter: “Mrs. Pretlow teaches French at school. Mommy does not.”

“Carol pretty much got her discipline from her mom when it came to academics,” said Dianne Delk, an employee of Chesapeake Public Schools and a friend of Carol’s since childhood. “I lived right in Riverview, which is next to the old Smithfield High School. Carol lived on the outskirts of Smithfield on Route 10.”

By 1979, according to the Times archives, she’d begun to work behind the scenes on local political campaigns, including retired Judge W. Parker Councill’s bid that year for commonwealth’s attorney.

By January 1984, at age 37, Pretlow had firmly established her political science credentials and was tapped to head a celebration of Isle of Wight County’s 350th anniversary. In a Times interview that year, she credited her parents with instilling in her a love of history. The Times reported she’d been active in planning the kickoff throughout the spring and summer of that year but resigned Aug. 1 to attend the Antioch School of Law. She ultimately received her doctoral degree from Washington College of Law.

The Times interviewed Pretlow again on Sept. 11, 2002, when she opined on the one-year anniversary of the Al Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon and the terrorist takeover of United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.

The Times reported that in 1999, Pretlow had started doing government-contracted research on countries such as Albania and Russia, and by 2001, had founded what she called a “think tank” for strategic and global studies at NSU that multiple media groups consulted as experts on foreign affairs in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. By that time, she’d spent the previous three years studying the political and economic conditions of more than 150 foreign countries, often focusing on terrorist groups, but not specifically Afghanistan, which the United States had invaded in 2001 when the Taliban refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the attacks.

She was as shocked as everyone else when the planes hit, telling the Times that she never suspected terrorists had the ability to coordinate taking over airplanes through brute force.

“Finding ourselves at the center of establishing a ‘road map’ for peace between Israel and Palestine, implementing a regime change in Iraq and leading a war on terrorism, we as a nation have assumed the responsibility of understanding, explaining and aiding in the crafting of 21st century democracy,” she wrote in a 2003 Times column when the 2001-begun Global War on Terror expanded with the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. “This was no easy task. Not only have we been forced to remember the realities of true democracy, we also had to shake off complacency. While we have never completely moved away from understanding democracy, this year, we were forced into renewing our understanding and perceptions of the democratic experience.”

At Norfolk State, Pretlow taught constitutional law, international relations and political theory. She was a founding director of Norfolk State’s Consortium for Strategic and Global Studies in its Department of Political Science.

“She was a wonderful professor at Norfolk State; her students adored her,” Delk said, describing her friend as “quite the scholar” and an “academic genius.”

Smithfield Vice Mayor Valerie Butler, another friend of Pretlow, also called her a genius when it came to politics.

“Her favorite place to visit was Prince Books in downtown Norfolk,” said Delk, who throughout the decades kept up her friendship with Pretlow and attended regular outings with her.

“Her other hangout was the Barnes and Noble inside MacArthur Mall; she was an avid reader, but she is well known for her love for NSU,” Delk said.

Pretlow’s Norfolk condominium “looks like the Library of Congress; hundreds of books,” Delk said. “She loved to do research.”

Outside of their respective careers in academia, Delk described her “down-to-earth” time with Pretlow as “like two little girls in a play room.”

“We both enjoyed musicals and theatre,” Delk said.

Pretlow was also a regular contributor to “Another View,” a radio talk show that airs on Hampton Roads-based radio station WHRO that discusses topics from an African American perspective.

“It’s a complete loss; it’s really hard to accept the fact that she’s gone,” Delk said.

A memorial service has not been announced.