Julia Campbell: A writer, adventurer till the end

Forensics experts have yet to confirm that the body found in a remote mountain village in northern Philippines is that of American Peace Corps volunteer Julia Campbell, who has been missing since April 8. And yet grief and disbelief have started to hit Campbell's friends and colleagues here and abroad. Page, a water sanitation technician and Campbell's Peace Corps "sitemate," reported the reaction of fellow volunteers assigned in Legazpi City in Albay to the news of the body's discovery in Batad village in Banaue, a town famous for its rice terraces, in Ifugao province. In an entry titled "Impermanence," posted April 18, Page wrote:

"About 50 of the volunteers from Peace Corps Philippines were sitting in the same room listening to information regarding the search for her when the news came in that her body had been found in a ravine near a trail. Until that instant, we were all tortured by uncertainty and kept happy only through the hope that this was a kidnapping and that she was still alive. Now we have certainty and, although we are not happy, we can begin the healing process. I wept for her and I will certainly cry again; she had a great deal of close friends, about whom I can say the same."

Campbell, a native of Fairfax, Virginia, was about to end her Philippine stint in May, and she was excited about going back to the US, where she was reportedly accepted to the New York Univerity. Before joining the Peace Corps, Campbell was a journalist who lived in Brooklyn, New York. "She had already been accepted to NYU and to say she was excited about going home understates it drastically," Page wrote in his blog. "She had been planning a post-Peace Corps trip back through Southeast Asia. Her Peace Corps service was wrapping up and her mind had already begun to shift gears back to the NYC mindset." Her disappearance deeply affected some of the friends she made in Calamba, Laguna, where she once lived, as reported on Wednesday by GMA's 24 Oras (Click here for related video: Laguna folk remember Julia Campbell) Persistent journalist Campbell was a former journalist who decided in 2005 to join the Peace Corps. As she put it in her blog, Julia in the Philippines: "At the age of 38, I decided to step out of the rat race of New York, join the Peace Corps and board a plane for Manila. This blog is dedicated to my adventures in the Philippines for the next two years. Wish me luck." Campbell worked in various publications, among them the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times, People Magazine, Star Magazine, FoxNEWS.com, ABCNews.com, and CourtTVNews.com. While an editor for CourtTVNews.com, Campbell was interviewed as among those who witnessed the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center. A transcript of that interview is posted at www.courttv.com. Ironically, it was also with the same outfit that Campbell wrote, among other staffers, about the mysterious disappearance of a California woman, Chandra Levy, a case in which California Rep. Gary Condit was implicated for allegedly having an intimate relationship with the missing woman. The story is titled Condit lawyer speaks from experience. Friend and former media colleague Josh Jennings Moss recalls how Campbell was as a journalist. In his blog Wanderings and Wonderings of J. Jennings Moss, Moss wrote:

"She kept pursuing a career in news, no matter how many bosses told her to get lost. She was the best kind of journalist, the kind that always asked questions, that was never satisfied. It was this quality that didn't curry favor with her employers as she applied the same tenacity to her work environment as she did the job itself. "So I was surprised with her plan to join the Peace Corps more than two years ago. But I was so proud of her and admired her commitment to changing her life 180 degrees. Few people would have taken that chance. I don't think I would have."

Major career shift Another former media colleague thought Campbell's joining the Peace Corps was a major career shift. John Cutter, online news senior editor of the Orlando Sentinel, posted an entry on Campbell on his "Orlando Crime" blog on April 16. Here's the entry, titled "Missing in the Philippines and again in my thoughts":

Just back from a week of vacation to find news that a former colleague and friend, Julia Campbell, is missing in the Philippines after taking a hike. I worked with Julia for a while in the early 1990s at the St. Petersburg Times, even helped her move back to New York City to re-start her life there. Like too many people in my life and in journalism, I lost track of Julia after she left People magazine a few years ago and didn't know she was now with the Peace Corps. She's been teaching in the Philippines, which from what I remember about Julia, it sounds like a move I can see her making, despite being at a stage in life and her career where many of us would be thinking of doing anything BUT making such a radical change. Everyone's hoping Julia is not a victim of a crime, that her story will turn out well, that she will be found, just lost and embarrassed but otherwise OK. Add her to your thoughts today, and if you can, make a contact with a friend from the past and tell them you are thinking about them today.

Another former colleague, who signs herself only as "eurotrash," also had an entry on Campbell, posted April 18 and titled "Oh Julia, we will miss you." Here's part of her entry, which recalls their days at the Star Magazine:

"One of my best office buddies was Julia Campbell. I remember her from my first day on Star, because in the news conference she seemed to get allotted a staggering amount of features for the week — anything from Demi Moore's eternal pregnancy which existed only in Bonnie's mind, to endless packages of who's fat, who's old and who's had surgery this week. And she did it all with enthusiasm too, which after the 50th time you've edited 'Best Beach Bodies!' in three months, is no mean feat. "I also remember her coming back to the office once after she'd been some talking head on TV about Brad and Jen or whatever, and she was all dolled up in telly make-up and she looked so happy and gorgeous and she'd done a great job in the piece, even when the interviewer threw her a tricky little curve ball of a question. I think that's how I'll remember her from now on."

Still a journalist Even during her stint as Peace Corps volunteer in the Bicol region, Campbell (40 years old, who was 5'-7" and weighed around 127 lbs) managed to write about the aftermath of Typhoon Reming for CNN. The article was filed from Legazpi City and was posted on the CNN website on December 10, 2006. Its title is "Heartbreak, laughter merge for typhoon survivors." The Peace Corps site also has a press release from Campbell's family posted on April 14:

“First, we would like to thank the Peace Corps for their immediate response to the disappearance of Julia and their continued search and rescue efforts in Banaue, where she was last seen. We are grateful to the U.S. Embassy in the Philippines and especially the Philippine people who are doing all they can to locate her. “During the past two years, Julia has been on assignment, she has served in various roles in the villages of Donsol (province of Sorsogon) where she worked with the local school there to rebuild and stock the school library. Many of her friends and family helped her in a campaign she created to provide age-appropriate reading materials to the library in a project she called "A Book and A Buck." She also worked with the local community to launch an ecology awareness campaign and build an Eco Center in Donsol. Most recently, she served as a teacher at the Divine Word College in Legaspi City, where she taught English. “Julia is a bright, strong, and gifted woman. We are optimistic that the search efforts will be successful, and we continue to pray for her and the people who are searching for her."

Campbell's last entry in her blog was posted on January 13, 2007. She titled it "Buhay Pa Tayo" ("We're Still Alive"), which recalls her experience when Typhoon Reming hit the Bicol region back in December 2006. - GMANews.TV