WFAA news anchor Gloria Campos shared her story of success and leadership Oct. 14 on TR Campus.

Campos grew up in a Latino household with her parents and grandparents in the Rio Grande Valley.

She said she had goals like graduating high school and going to college to make her parents proud.

Campos had gone to school with students whose parents had college degrees. Her parents weren’t so fortunate.

Her leadership started when she joined student council in high school, she said.

“Even though no one had ever really encouraged me to go to college, I still wanted to go because most of my peers were going,” she said.

“I was in the top 10 percent of the class of over 600. You would think I’d be college material, but no one ever said, ‘You need to go to college.’”

Campos attended college at what is now Texas State University in San Marcos, where she discovered that her future would be as a reporter. 

“News is in my blood. I get up. I watch news. I read the paper. I turn on the radio. I listen to news,” she said.

Campos said she learned a lot by reading autobiographies and biographies because she felt everything she read helped her become a better reporter.

“I am very inspired by her,” TR student Lizbeth Perez said.

“She is a role model for all of us Latinos out there. She taught me that we can do pretty much anything if we try our best to succeed.”

People learn something new every day, and they must use everything they learn to help them become a better person — a leader, Campos said.

“It’s a path of life and a key component to being a leader,” she said.

She advised the students and faculty to take the opportunity to help others in their community because part of leadership is making the community better.

“There is definitely someone out there who can benefit from your knowledge, your love, your compassion,” she said. “Do not turn your back to that person.”

Campos said if people were to see an injustice or a problem that needed to be solved, they would always step forward if they are true leaders.

“I believe that it’s very important to make yourself get heard if something is bothering you, especially with all the discrimination I tend to get for being Muslim that has to do with terrorism,” TR student Amira Belmashkan said.

NE student Diana Aguilar said she was impressed by Campos’ words.

“I personally loved her speech,” she said. “I loved how she persuaded you to do something you really wanted to do, to go for it and accomplish it.”

Campos told the students that at the end of the day, they have the key in their heart and their soul to make a huge difference in their society.

“But you have to want to do it,” she said.

“It has to course through your veins like blood, and you have to choose your passion.”