The Portales Municipal School District was one of the first in the nation to adopt CC!. It launched CC! in 1993 as part of its vision plan, and the program remains vibrant and varied throughout the district.

Glenda Meeks, now assistant principal at Portales Junior High, was instrumental in bringing CC! to Portales as a fifth-grade Title I teacher. “I was watching a program on 20/20 about CHARACTER COUNTS!," she told the Portales News-Tribune in August 2004, "and felt our kids could really use the information."

Elementary school counselor Lisa Harrell has led CC! for the past seven years. “Everyone can benefit from CHARACTER COUNTS! whether in the public school or in the community,” she said. “Whether we realize it or not, the Six Pillars of Character are a part of our lives and personality. It’s just a matter of bringing them out of us. If everyone in our schools and community followed the six concepts, we’d get along better because we’d have respect for one another without giving up who we are."

Becky Flen, principal of Steiner Elementary, said, “Everyone is being held accountable for teaching students that CHARACTER COUNTS! and the community looks up to us to follow through with this. We’re giving students a tool to rely upon later in their lives to help them make decisions.”