Month: March 2026

By Sarah M. Henry

March 16, 2026

Photos courtesy of the author
Cover photo: My little mountain in Rappahannock

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The Rappahannock River has formed me and the communities I love. I was raised where the river begins and started my career as a school counselor where the river meets the Chesapeake Bay. When I arrived in the Northern Neck as a school counselor, one of my new students’ parents asked me, “How long do you think you’ll stay?” She added, “You’re a Come-Here, not a Been-Here. My kids won’t trust you unless they know you’re a Stay-Here.”

Time as a Been-Here

The road to my childhood home is nearly three miles long and poorly maintained by the state. In the winter, when it snowed, my dad had our family sit on the back of his homemade plow behind the tractor so we could clear the road before the snow piled too high for anyone to leave. Our work cleared the path to school and helped our neighbors get to work on time. Other kids at school, especially those from more suburban or urban communities, didn’t understand these stories, so I eventually stopped sharing this treasured tradition—the bundling up in coats and hats, sitting on the back of the wooden wedge with my brother, my mom, the dogs, and sacks of feed. In hindsight, this was my first experience with prevention. It helped shape my life trajectory as a community member, school counselor, and now counselor educator, all rooted in a deep and sincere love for rural places and people.

Becoming a Come-Here

When I attended my undergraduate institution, I became acutely aware of my rural identity as peers pointed out my accent, my “quaint stories,” and the differences in our upbringings. I remember feeling a pang in my stomach when a classmate referred to my life as quaint. My stomach, heart, and mind longed to be understood as something more than small. These places and people are grand—perhaps with more depth than breadth, but still vast.

In college, I felt most at home in the woods behind the dorms or working at a summer camp for teenagers, where I could lean into my goofy side to make sure everyone experienced a sense of joyful belonging during those two weeks. Being away from home made me realize how deeply I missed rural places and people, and that I ultimately wanted to live and work in one again. I shifted my path to pursue a career in school counseling. Schools exist everywhere, and school counselors are positioned to focus on prevention while working within systems that help children find belonging in school and in life.

After earning my master’s degree, I moved to the Northern Neck to work as a school counselor. 

The work reminded me of home, where we used what we had to care for our plants and animals, like repurposing old Christmas trees as roosts for our chickens. 

Even then, I knew I might eventually leave. I missed the mountains and the sense of renewal I felt when my car climbed an incline on a winding road. I also realized I wanted to return to school to learn more. I often felt underprepared, and I was passionate about improving how we prepare rural school counselors. We need to train counselors to work in communities that may not have youth mental health professionals. They need to know how to write grants and advocate for the resources that K–12 students in rural communities desperately need. School counselors exist to ensure students have the support and opportunities to become the best versions of themselves. Yet too much of school counseling, especially in rural America, becomes crisis counseling, which is exhausting and contributes to burnout and mistakes.

Finally, a Stay-Here

Here, I have found a place to plant my career and nurture it into what I hope it can become. The distinct sense of rurality and community is why I want to stay. I can contribute to programming with the Center for Rural Education, like a summer camp for rural students, while also supporting school and clinical mental health counselors in training as they learn to navigate rural places and communities. I also can work with a variety of students, from rural communities and not, to figure out their life’s professional journey. 

Like the Rappahannock itself, my path has brought me further and now closer to rural communities. I’ve been shaped by the places and people who taught me the value of belonging, community, and stewardship. From being a Been-Here in the mountains to a Come-Here along the Chesapeake, and now a Stay-Here in the Roanoke Valley, each chapter has deepened my commitment to rural places. The river’s currents remind me that communities are living systems, sustained by those who choose to invest in them. My work as a counselor educator is rooted in that same belief: that rural students, schools, and communities deserve professionals who understand their strengths, honor their stories, and are willing to stay long enough to make a difference.

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