Danny Zofness barely graduated from Kirkwood High School.

“The image I created for myself was a kid who didn’t care,” Zofness said. “I was more worried about being cool than doing what’s best for me.”
Zofness, a walking counselor for the past two years, is a familiar face at KHS. Though the 29-year-old, 2001 KHS graduate still has close relationships with staff members such as Principal Dr. Michael Havener, the journey back to the halls he once walked has not been easy.

Ever since he moved into the Kirkwood School District in fifth grade, Zofness felt he lost his sense of belonging and began acting up in school. Playing football his freshman year and baseball through his junior year was not enough to keep him focused. A popular student, Zofness would often skip class with friends and hardly worry about keeping his grades up. His cumulative GPA at the end of his senior year was 1.8.

“Danny was part of a very spirited class,” Havener, former grade level principal for the Class of 2001, said. “But they weren’t always the most focused.”

Havener became close with Zofness after coaching him his sophomore year in baseball. After Zofness’ parents divorced when he was 17, Havener played a big support role in his student’s life, but Zofness continued to act out.

Zofness recalls a memorable day during his senior year when he and several friends tried to leave school in the middle of the day. He was caught by a walking counselor and brought into Havener’s office, where he witnessed a scene he will never forget.

“[Havener] lost it. He was literally screaming. Not like yelling. He was screaming at us,” Zofness said. “He asked us things like ‘What are you guys doing? This is not how life is. You guys are going to end up in jail if you keep doing this kind of stuff.’”

Zofness was stunned, but the warning didn’t register. He continued to drink alcohol and smoke marijuana throughout his senior year, consistently missing class and barely achieving enough credit hours to graduate. After high school, he did not go on to college.

“I felt like a loser,” Zofness said. “I slept until two in the afternoon, didn’t have a job, didn’t go to school.”

A sensitive and emotional kid, Zofness continued to blame others for his struggles. Girlfriends, his relationship with his parents and bad jobs at fast food restaurants all played into his growing depression and feeling of low self-worth.

“After high school, life was not good,” Zofness said. “From 18 until about 22, I was a bum. I was too afraid to try because I was too afraid to fail.”

Things began to change, however, when his mother convinced him to attend a rehabilitation program for his frequent marijuana use when he was 21. The two week out-patient program gave Zofness a new perspective on his problems.

“The one thing I learned when I was there, I’ll never forget,” Zofness said. “I was in the room with all of these people who were really hard drug addicts. All of these people were making excuses for why their life is the way it is. I thought to myself, ‘I’m going to refuse to be that way.’”

He realized he had the power to change. He did not have to blame the people or events in his life he felt were holding him back. From that moment on, Zofness began doing little things to get his life on track. When he lived with his friend for a few months, he would clean his house every day before work.

“I knew that if I was capable of the little things, I would create this mental buildup of small goals,” Zofness said.

Those small goals paid off when Zofness landed a job at the Kirkwood YMCA working with kids. As he worked to become a positive role model in the children’s lives, they turned out to be even greater role models for him. When the kids started asking him why he smelled like cigarettes—he was a smoker— he knew he had to quit. When they started asking if he went to college, he began working toward a degree at Meramec.

“I was able to tell the kids I went to college,” Zofness said.

After working at the YMCA and briefly at Mary Queen of Peace Catholic school, Zofness started a job at Keysor in its before-and-after-school child care program. By 2008, he was directing the entire program.

“Once he got a job at the YMCA at Kirkwood, he realized the impact he could have on young kids,” Ben Woolf, fellow walking counselor and long-time friend of Zofness, said. “He started to change his life for the positive. That’s part of the reason why he wanted to work [at KHS]: So he could tell his story to other people.”

After fulfilling the 60 college credit hours required to be a walking counselor at KHS, Zofness applied for the job, and, with a personal recommendation from Havener, got it.

“Some people take a straight path to where they want to go in life,” Havener said. “Danny just took a longer road to get where he is now.”

Zofness does not plan on making a career as a walking counselor. He is still currently pursuing his first passion, filmmaking. If he cannot someday make a career out of it, he is planning on going back to school to become a counselor or clinical psychologist.

As someone so familiar with the struggles of an underachieving high school student, Zofness sees kids who acted just like he did every day. He knows the advice he gives them now may not instantly click, but hopefully they can eventually discover their full potential.

“If you put positive things in the universe you get positive things back,” Zofness said. “If you go for a positive goal, even if you don’t reach that goal, good things will happen. I want to make movies. But even if I don’t reach my goal, I’m still in a positive place.”