Armando Avenlino-Ortiz, from Faison, knows first hand what its like to work hard for the goals he set for himself.
The youngest of four brothers, his mom and dad instilled in him a work ethic at an early age. He attended Hargrove Elementary, Hobbton Middle School and Hobbton High School. Once graduating high school, Ortiz attended Sampson Community College and transferred to Campbell University, where he currently stands as the first ever Hispanic president of Student Government Association in Campbell University history. He was also the first ever transfer president as well.
“My parents migrated here in the ‘90s,” Ortiz said. “My mom has done agriculture for most of the time she’s been here. My dad works swine most of his time here. He loads pigs on a trailer. Growing up everybody had a job. My parents, they worked all around throughout the day. It was up to the four brothers who decided what to do; we all had a different task. The oldest cut the grass, the middle had dinner, the third took out the trash, the fourth cleaned the bathroom. There was always something. I think it taught us work ethic, it taught us that we’re all gonna have a job eventually, we might as well start now. My mom said it best, ‘I can’t leave you inheritance, I can’t leave you a house, but I can teach you something that’s gonna be more valuable than any other. I can teach you how to work.’ Just being able to experience, at a young age that everything has value in it.”
Ortiz emphasized that mentality is the reason why he never stopped fighting.
“I’ve always been working, because I knew there was a bigger goal at the end,” he said. “My dad said this: there’s ups, there’s downs, and there’s lefts and rights. When he said ‘what is a left and right you ask?’ Sometimes life is gonna try to fight, and sometimes you’re gonna be able to fight back to decide if you’re gonna go up or you’re gonna go down.”
When Ortiz was at Hobbton High, there was a moment he honestly wasn’t sure if he would graduate. It was then, however, when he realized he had a passion for history, ultimately discovering his goal of becoming a history teacher.
“I went to high school during COVID, my junior year was the main year we were all out of school,” he explained. “I actually wanted to drop out of high school, and I didn’t want to go to college. I just wanted to do something different, I wanted to go right into the workforce. I’m the first to graduate high school, the first to graduate from community college, and I’ll be the first graduate with a four-year degree. It’s one of those things, I remember having a conversation with my football coach. I said, ‘Coach, I don’t know what I wanna do, but I know I want to coach.’ He looked me in my face and told me to pick two subjects. I said history and simple math, and he told me to get my degree in one or the other and become a teacher. I looked at him like he was crazy, because I never saw myself as the teacher type. That was when I was like: ‘OK, I wanna teach history, because I feel like history is one of those subjects that are so under appreciated. One of my favorite quotes is, ‘Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it.’”
Following a conversation with his college advisor at Hobbton at the time, Gaelen Dent, Sampson Community College became the next stop in Ortiz’s education. When he graduated, two options presented themselves: East Carolina University, or Campbell. After some holdups regarding paperwork, Campbell easily drew Ortiz into the college experience he was after.
“I was having such a big issue with ECU,” he said. “I had paperwork issues that I really couldn’t seem to get answered, I had similar paperwork issues with Campbell that I was able to make one phone call and before I knew, it was resolved. With ECU, it was multiple phone calls and emails. I think Campbell’s just one of those experiences that you’re not just a number, but you’re your name. You’re a student, they know your face, they know what you’re about, they know what you wanna do. There’s people there to help you, they’ll pray for you to figure it out. There’s people there to support you. There’s people who are there to make sure you’re getting the best quality experience you can at Campbell.”
Ortiz’s journey into Campbell’s Student Government Association is one that seems like a movie script.
“I was a write-in, so I didn’t even run for senior representative,” Ortiz admits. “Because my credits weren’t equal up to being a senior rep, so I was a write-in for the SGA. I took the opportunity to get more involved with it. The previous president (Cutler Bryant) had been there for four years, but he was a president for his senior year, and vice president the year before. There was a good amount of candidates who were gonna run, but then it ended up being me and another girl who were running for it. It was a really close race, I believe I only won by 24 votes, the final count was 152-128. The entire time it seemed like everybody was behind me, everybody was supporting me on this dream of trying to become the SGA student body president. Just because they know how I am, I care about people, I’m genuine. I try to be the best person all around. I realized that the university is gonna see something that they’ve never seen before. That’s one of the reasons I kind of felt like running. I told God, if this is for me, let me do it. Before I knew it, I was at the interest meeting. Before I knew it, I ended up running and before I knew it, I won.”
Ortiz recalls the exact moment that he secured victory in the election.
“It was a whole week thing,” Ortiz explained. “We had a debate on Monday, on Tuesday we had the candidates meeting, for those with their last chance to drop out. Wednesday, that was Election Day, I stood out there from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. It took forever to get the ballots, because we had an abnormal amount of votes, so they had to count paper ballots, while also counting virtual ballots. I didn’t get the results until 5:50 p.m. that day. I remember getting the emails saying, ‘Congratulations, Mr. Ortiz, you have won the election and are now the president elect.’ I kid you not, I could have fell down to my knees and cried when I got the email. I was in shock, the other person was a great candidate, and that’s when I saw I only won by 24 votes. That’s how close it was. I teared up a little bit, because I knew there was enough people to believe in me to become the next president. I knew there was a shackle broken there. Now they’re gonna see the first Hispanic president, now they’re gonna see the first chapter. They’re gonna see what different students from different parts of the world can do.”
While President Ortiz is someone those on the campus of Campbell are very familiar with, his parents are starting to understand the concept of what that title means for their son.
“My parents, like I said, I’m the youngest out of four, so they don’t understand the true grasp of it,” he said. “But I think they’ll truly understand it when graduation comes around. When graduation comes around, they’ll see me walk the stage. Something cool that I like is, I’m going to be able to give a speech. I think that’s when they’re gonna truly understand what happened. At this moment, they’re excited, they know what I’m doing is good. But I don’t think they know the true intensity of it.”
Once he graduates, Ortiz sees himself teaching history to high school students. Perhaps, if things align the way he plans it, that most certainly will be in Sampson County.
“That’s one of the goals is to eventually head back home,” Ortiz emphasized. “Because the community there continues to grow. My people are continuing to grow there. I wanna show that anything and everything is possible. I’ve been through it, I have experienced up and down, left and right, I’ve been there. I fought and done that. Being able to share those stories with people who are in a similar situation like me, or look like me, or don’t believe in themselves. They don’t have parents who believe in them. To be able to tell my story and say ‘Hey, sometimes it’s just you, and sometimes you have a whole rally’. But regardless, there’s people who are like you, who are in better situations because they kept fighting. So, I do want to end up back home, and I do wanna go back to Sampson County, to continue to spread those stories.”