Mr. Bill Campbell is a name that is unknown by some, but one that many students should get to know. He has been a counselor for 40 years and at South Lakes for 21 years. He is from California and likes to watch the Nebraska Cornhuskers college basketball teams and the Capitals and be active (he is a self-proclaimed “fitness junkie”). He thinks the best part about being a counselor is “getting to see a to the kids that no one else gets to see and helping them with problems that they might not want to talk about.”

“It means that someone, somewhere, thinks that you are at the forefront of your department and that you have set good goals for you and everyone else that is a counselor,” he said of his nomination for the Outstanding Leader Award. Before he was a counselor, though, he was a teacher in California and felt like he knew what counselors did and how to do it, so he became one and moved to Virginia to begin another chapter of his life.

His views on technology are interesting, commenting that “it was supposed to take away a lot of the clutter, but if you look around, it is the same as it was before.” he commented, motioning to the piles of papers around his office, “It does, though, give parents a better opportunity to see into their kids’ academic lives. It is a helpful learning tool that – when utilized correctly – is a valuable piece to a classroom.” The last part could also be said about counselors: when used correctly, they are a great tool and a valuable piece to a school.