Getting out of bed long before the sun comes up is no problem for Bill Camper, who started doing it in the 1940s to deliver milk, hopping on and off trucks in the wee hours to put glass bottles of the white stuff on doorsteps in an era when poor refrigeration would make it spoil quickly.
His next job at age 17 was as a gunner’s mate in the Navy, which never once allowed him to sleep in. Then he joined the Army, serving in the Korean War and two hitches in Vietnam, a “lifer” who rose in 31 years to the rank of lieutenant colonel.
“I have always been teaching people something,” says Camper, 81. “Teaching troops to dig foxholes, things necessary to stay alive.”
And for the past 11 years, he’s marched into Peachtree City Elementary School at least four times a week at 7 a.m. to tutor first-graders who need a little help with their studies.
He says he wouldn’t know how to retire, and that helping youngsters has been the most rewarding experience of his life.
He’s the longest-running mentor of the 136 volunteers in the Fayette County system’s “Friends Mentoring Program.”
He helps kids learn to read, catch up on math concepts and comprehension by reading to them before they join their classmates.
“I’m at school four days a week, sometimes more, and I can’t wait to get there,” says Camper. “My wife, Peggy, married 60 years, thinks I’m crazy. But after a whole lifetime of getting up early I’ve already been awake a long time when I get to school.”
And he’s never been late, says Jane Gough, who runs the mentoring program.
“He’s amazing, and everybody loves him,” she says. “In addition to school subjects, he also teaches self-discipline, self-respect, patriotism and the importance of being a good citizen.”
Sometimes he tutors one child — this year four — all before the new-fangled blackboards in most classrooms have been wiped clean.
Right now, one child he’s working with is first-grader Jack Penoyer, whose mother, Laura Penoyer, is very grateful.
“Jack works with Mr. Camper four mornings a week,” says Penoyer, a fourth-grade teacher. “Jack struggles a bit with reading, and Mr. Camper helps him. He’s patient. And it’s paying off.”
All mentors are fingerprinted and rigorously checked out by both the GBI and the FBI, Gough says. Any applicant with even a tiny blemish is nixed.
“Each mentor also has go to through an orientation, and make a time commitment of at least one hour a week for the school year,” Gough says.
But that’s never been a problem for Camper, Gough says.
Like other mentors, he communicates with his mentees’ teacher, Betty Stricklen, every day.
“I’ll say, ‘Make sure he reads this book,’ or ‘practice spelling,’ and we’ve been working together so long he knows what to do,” she says. “In addition to tutoring, he’ll speak to the whole class about Memorial Day or Veterans Day, the pledge to the flag, the importance of duty and honor. He teaches so much more than academics. He teaches responsibility, the importance of giving.”
Camper pauses. “I spent a lot of time away from home, away from my three children, who are grown. This is payback. I’m just an average citizen doing something that helps. And I can’t see stopping, ever.”
Suggest a Hometown Hero
Every other Wednesday, Bill Hendrick shines a spotlight on extraordinary and selfless acts by our friends and neighbors. To suggest someone for this feature, e-mail writer@billhendrick.com.
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