Desiree Rogers welcomes Julianna Smoot to the White House Social Secretary "sisterhood"

WASHINGTON–Former White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers on Saturday hosted a welcome lunch for her successor, Julianna Smoot at a hotel here.

“It was a wonderful celebration welcoming Julianna to the social secretaries sisterhood,” Rogers told me.

Hosting a lunch for the new Social Secretary is a tradition started in the 1990s by former Clinton White House Social Secretary Ann Stock. The lunch took place days after Smoot’s first State Dinner, hosted by President Obama and First Lady Michelle for Mexico President Felipe Calderon and his wife, Margarita Zavala.

Rogers threw the lunch bash at the Jefferson Hotel; her menu included green salad, crab cakes or chicken, with sorbet and berries for dessert.

Others attending were Ann Stock, a Social Secretary in the Clinton White House, nominated by Obama to be Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs; Capricia Marshall, also from the Clinton White House and now the Chief of Protocol at the Department of State; Amy Zantzinger, who served under President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush and Cathy Fenton, who also came out of the George W. Bush White House. For more details, click here.

Said Zantzinger, “I think it is nice for the incoming Social Secretary to see the support system she has in place.”