Carden Park Elementary School Counselor Amy Adkins was surprised Friday morning to be named the Northwest Missouri Counselor of the year.

“I did not have any idea, totally suprised,” Adkins said. “They kind of tricked me into going to this meeting this morning and then it was announced while we were there.”

Adkins was named counselor of the year by the Northwest Missouri School Counselors Association during a meeting Friday morning at EmpowerU.

Adkins has been a counselor with the St. Joseph School District for 13 years and said she deals with many different types of situations facing students.

“It could be anything from being upset over a bad grade to not having sufficient clothing to troubles at home,” Adkins said.

Prior to working at Carden Park Adkins was a counselor at Humboldt Elementary and Webster when it was still an elementary school.