Ralston reflects on 14 years leading CCHS Student Council

‘My experience with student council had been a “true blessing” in my life,- Billie Jo Ralston

By Charlotte Underwood

JACKSBORO, TN (WLAF)- After 14 “wonderful and inspiring” years leading the Campbell County High School Student Council, long-time educator Billie Jo Ralston is passing on that leadership. This school year finishes her last term as Student Council leader.

Ralston said retiring from leading student council is a little bittersweet for her and that she will miss it and all the “amazing students.”

Ralston was born and raised in Campbell County. She attended Valley View Elementary School, LaFollette Middle School and CCHS. She attended night school for 14 years to get her teaching degree. She has been an educator in Campbell County since 2009. Prior to that she taught in Crossville for three years and was a teaching assistant in Rockwood.

She began leading student council 14 years ago. At that time, Charlotte Sances and Gina Adrian were co-leading student council.

“Charlotte knew she wanted to retire, and she came to me and asked if I wanted to take the reigns and I said yes,” Ralston said.

Student council is the student government of the student body, and they are “essential in planning home-coming activities, senior night activities, and overall, producing a positive culture in the school.”

 “We really expanded upon that and started doing a lot of community outreach over the years. The community has been so wonderful to our school system and the kids have found ways to pay it forward and just give back to the ones who always give to us,” Ralston said.

It was Sances and Adrian that were instrumental in bringing back the CCHS Homecoming Parade and during her tenure, Ralston and then student council president Brandon Johnson were instrumental in getting it brought back to LaFollette.

“Back in the 80’s, our Homecoming parades were legendary and they brought those back around 2008 and they had it in downtown Jacksboro – which the original ones were in downtown LaFollette – so the first year that I was over student council, we had the homecoming parade in Jacksboro, but it was so big that we couldn’t get everyone in the parking lot to get the parade started, so the second year I was over student council, Brandon Johnson was president and we talked about going back up the city of LaFollette. I met with the mayor and the city police chief, and we got the okay to get it moved back up there and then Brandon and I went to meet with Donnie Poston who was the director of schools, and he was all about bringing it back. So, we brought back the first homecoming parade to downtown LaFollette,” Ralston said.

Another highlight during her time leading student council was when student council member Meredith Rippy had the idea to start a soup-kitchen type of meal, something that has evolved into the high school’s community dinner each November. The idea was implemented around 2014 or 2015, according to Ralston.

“Meredith came to me and said God had laid it on her heart. She said she didn’t want it to just be for people in need, but rather for everyone. Under Meredith’s brainstorming, we got together and concocted the assignments for each grade level and then of course the student council officers had some extra participation, and we all brought crock pots of soup, breads, side items, drinks and opened our cafeteria the day before Thanksgiving and invited the community and anyone who wanted to join us for lunch. It is such a worthwhile and satisfying event,” Ralston said.

The annual Community Friendsgiving is open to anyone in the community.

The student council also used to do community painting parties to help raise money for the kids to go to leadership workshops or to attend conferences.

“People would come in and lead painting workshops and those that attended would leave with a painting; we had a blast with that,” Ralston said.

Another highlight was when then CCHS principal Jamie Wheeler said she wanted quotes painted all over the school building and asked if the student council kids could take on the project.

“The kids had been wanting to do that and had been talking to her about it, so we came in over the summer and worked long hours up here getting quotes painted on walls, and on the bathroom doors. It was all part of the positive culture, and all quotes were inspirational,” Ralston said.

That positive and inspiring culture is what CCHS’s student council strives for – that and to give back to those in need.

“When the wildfires swept through the Great Smokies, Student Council member Mary Grace Myers came to me and said she had the children in Gatlinburg on her heart. She wanted to do Christmas for them.

“I never dreamed it would get as big as it did, but I called over to Gatlinburg-Pittman High School and told them what we wanted to do, and they provided us with numbers like they do with the Angel Tree, and they provided us with information of things the kids would like. The counselors over there did a lot of extra work with this because they would pull those kids that had been affected into their office to talk to them privately and they made lists of what the kids needed. Some of them had barely escaped with their lives and they lost everything, their favorite blanket was gone, or set of earbuds and those are the things that they were having to wait to get them replaced, so we got this list from Gatlinburg-Pittman and my student council kids went out and they filled the back of my f-150 with gifts and it has a full sized bed. When the counselor saw all those presents, she started bawling her eyes out. These kids have such servant hearts; they still do. I have seen this type of giving from these students year after year. These kids have servant hearts, and they want to help others,” Ralston said.

This year’s student council community outreach project involved a play on the Holocaust, as well as donations of rice bags to area nursing homes.

“My classes first semester did a play on the Holocaust, and we had a display of rice, and we had approximately six million grains of rice on display, one for every Jew that was persecuted during the Holocaust. So, my students sat in here in class and they counted grains of rice until they weighed an ounce and then they multiplied that number by 16 to get a pound and then we divided that number into six million. It equaled 234 pounds of rice is what we ended up with. We did not want to waste that much rice, so the student council is going to make the rice bags that can be heated or frozen either one and we are going to take those around to the assisted living and nursing homes so that the folks there can have those to alleviate some of their aches and pains,” Ralston said.

Ralston said she was going to miss leading student council, but she also looked forward to having more time with her family.

“My grandson is going into middle school, and he plays baseball and football. They live in Kingston, so we will be on the road going there to attend those games and I’m looking forward to that,” Ralston said.

According to Ralston, she is leaving the student council in the “very capable hands” of fellow educator and former CCHS student council alumni McKenzie Ayers.

“Ayers teaches environmental science and served on student council all four years that she was in high school and attended the state convention in Memphis one of those years; she is a wonderful person and student council is going into very capable hands,” Ralston said.

Overall, Ralston said her experience with student council had been a “true blessing” in her life.

“It has been such a blessing, it truly has. Working with these kids in this capacity and watching them grow and give back to the community and work hard to make a difference has truly been one of the biggest blessings of my life.” (WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED-02/03/2025-6AM-PHOTOS COURTESY OF ANDY ALOYSIUS)