photo by Contributed Photo

Superintendent Randy Fuller (Far Left) congratulates Pat Holder, High School Counselor of the Year; Su Beard, Middle School Counselor of the Year; Janey Patty, Elementary Principal of the Year and Wendy McNish, First Year Counselor of the Year with Guidance and Testing Supervisor Susan Seng.

Counselors honored for student service

By Samantha Hurst (Contact) | Shelby County Reporter

Published Wednesday, June 10, 2009

The Shelby County school system honored four counselors with Counselor of the Year awards last month for their efforts to help students through school and struggles within home life.

Su Beard of Montevallo Middle School received the middle school award for the second year in a row. Her principal Vanessa Nason said there is good reason for her multiple wins.

“The students at Montevallo Middle School absolutely adore her. She is like their second mother,” Nason said.

Beard became a school counselor after realizing the good she could do in students’ lives. In fact, she helped a former student through a difficult time caring for his siblings because of his mother’s drug abuse.

“He was full of chutzpah and determination to make it. So, when he and I finished his English, we would talk about him graduating high school, his plans to reach his goals and his responsibilities to get where he wanted to go in life. He made it, too,” Beard said. “[He] taught me a ton about counseling - really about just being a person. I cry every time I think of him. There was just something so satisfying about helping someone find his way through life even if I had just a small, temporary part. I knew I wanted to be able to give that way again.”

Other counselors honored this year were Janey Patty, Elementary School Counselor of the Year; Pat Holder High School Counselor of the Year; and Wendy McNish, First Year Counselor of the Year.

Patty has been a school counselor for 16 years and currently works at Valley Intermediate. Her greatest professional accomplishment has been being a positive influence for her students.

Her principal, Dana Payne, said to say Patty is the counselor at the school would be an understatement.

“She is so much more. She is a role model to teachers and students in many ways,” Payne said. “She lives her life as a model for what she teaches which speaks volumes to those around her.”

While several of the counselors have been at it for years,

Wendy McNish of Thompson High School was the winner of the First Year Counselor of the Year Award. McNish has been teaching in Shelby County since 1996 as an English teacher. She is now a ninth–grade counselor.

She was led to the field after realizing some students have circumstances in their lives that prevent them from achieving academic success.

“No child should be expected to succeed in academics or life when even the most basics of human needs like safety, food or shelter are not being met,” McNish said. “Yet, many of them –– with just the slightest help from someone –– achieve above and beyond the world’s expectations.”

All of the counselors credit their students as their inspiration.

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