Leadership Letter: Dreaming and Accomplishing Together

What a year! Where to begin? I feel like it has been a whirlwind, but maybe that’s just me. We’ve done so much as an association. I won’t go through and list all that we have accomplished because I believe the accomplishments speak for themselves, but I do want to acknowledge the amount of work and dedication I have seen from our WySCA board and committee members. I know that because of their hard work we have continued to increase our presence in the state and had a record-breaking conference that provided great opportunities for growth along and meeting of lots of new faces. For that I thank you all.

That said, it’s now time for me to turn over the reins to Janet Buchhammer, who will begin her tenure as the Wyoming School Counseling Association’s next president. I am confident that she will help WySCA continue to expand and provide more of these opportunities for our school counselors in Wyoming. It’s been a pleasure to serve as the WySCA president this school year and I’m looking forward to continuing to support our school counselors across the state as the past president this next year.

In solidarity,
Kayla Wilkinson
 
 
Introducing Incoming President Janet Buchhammer
 
My name is Janet Buchhammer, and I am a high school counselor in Burns. Next year, I will be split between an elementary school and the high school, so will be counseling all grades. I have worked in residential treatment, community counseling and as a school counselor at all grade levels. I started out my education career as a social studies teacher in Laramie. During my first week of teaching, a student asked me if I was a school counselor – and that opened up my eyes to all kinds of possibilities. I enrolled in a school counseling program through the University of West Alabama the next semester and followed my dreams.

I look forward to the upcoming year and hope to help our school counselor association continue to grow and flourish. I can’t wait to represent you at the ASCA conference this year in sunny Atlanta. A huge thank you to Kayla Wilkinson and April Petty for pushing me to get involved. 

This year we have many new members in our SCA, and we look forward to working together at our board retreat in June. Our goals for the year are to implement our new scholarships and to continue working toward policy governance to give members a greater voice. We will be updating our Ends Policies and plan to reach out to our membership for input and support. We also can’t wait to plan a wonderful conference with an equally amazing speaker with the help of our conference committee and especially Erin Curtis, our excellent conference committee chair.

Contact Janet Buchhammer, incoming WySCA president, at presidentelect@wyomingschoolcounselor.org.