Camp counselors must exhibit patience, be personable and truly care about young people. They earn mere peanuts, too, but Ginnie Burriss wasn't in it for the money.
Like her mother before her, Ms. Burriss attended Camp Crestridge for Girls, nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina. As her mother had later done, she also worked as a counselor as well as other roles for the Christian-themed program. She taught swimming and served as director of land sports.
"She was just great with the kids," said Ron Springs, Crestridge's summer camps director. "She had a heart for young people and was a very good counselor and role model. Counselors want to make a difference in a person's life and that was definitely her."
Counseling taught Ms. Burriss something about herself, too. She learned that she worked well with sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders and became a middle school instructor. She was most recently a sixth-grade social studies teacher at Peachtree Charter Middle School in Dunwoody.
"Her students truly enjoyed her and quite often, she used humor to make the lesson more lively and fun for the students," said Scott Heptinstall, the school principal. "She did an outstanding job."
In 2001, Virginia "Ginnie" Vail Burriss of Atlanta had two surgeries at Yale University to prevent her from having recurrent epileptic seizures. She was 18 at the time. Recently, the seizures returned, though, and last Thursday the educator died in her sleep. She was 27. A memorial service was held Monday at All Saints' Episcopal Church. H.M. Patterson & Son, Oglethorpe chapel, handled arrangements.
Ms. Burriss had not been a Crestridge summer camp counselor in recent years, but kept busy with other activities. For 10 years, she was a soccer coach, referee and swim instructor at the Carl E. Sanders Family YMCA at Buckhead. She was also a co-cheerleading coach at Peachtree Charter.
"She was good in all kinds of stuff," said her mother, Annie Hunt Burriss of Atlanta. "After she started having the seizures again in January, she had wanted to take this summer off so she could deal with the issue."
Ms. Burriss earned a bachelor's degree from Georgia College & State University and her teacher certification at North Georgia College & State University. She worked as a paraprofessional at DeKalb County's Montgomery Elementary, a school she once attended and, prior to Peachtree Charter, taught at Chamblee Middle School.
"I talked to her last Wednesday and she was so happy with her students because they had done so well on the CRCT," her mother said. "She had a mixed group with different skill levels, but she always told her students, ‘Stay strong, you can do this.' And that was Ginnie."
Additional survivors include her father, Woody Burriss of Atlanta; a brother, William Burriss of Lexington, Ky.; and grandmothers Mary Jenkins Hunt of Elberton and Virginia Vail Robinson of Orlando.
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