{"id":8817,"date":"2026-03-27T10:55:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T15:55:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/?p=8817"},"modified":"2026-03-27T10:55:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T15:55:19","slug":"folk-of-noke-william-phillips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/?p=8817","title":{"rendered":"Folk of \u2018Noke: William Phillips"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0William Phillips, a.k.a. Willi P, is a junior from just north of Richmond, Virginia, pursuing his major in marketing.\u00a0 He is the president of the Roanotes, a fully student-led acapella group, and is a member of the concert and chamber choirs.\u00a0 To see when the Roanotes\u2019 final concert of the year will be, check their Instagram at the_roanotes.\u00a0 \u201cWe’re doing either 10 or 11 songs for the final concert.\u00a0 So it’s gonna be pretty big, [including songs] from Love Shack to Creep by Radiohead.\u00a0 That Creep performance is gonna be really good.\u00a0 Our soloist, Chase, is really talented. But yeah, we’re looking to do a few small things here and there before the semester ends. We just have to finalize a few plans.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0On top of exercising his vocal cords, William competes as a powerlifter at the collegiate level.\u00a0 He made collegiate nationals in 2024 and channels his lifting prowess through his online coaching of other powerlifters, like the record-setting fellow senior Liz Cullen.\u00a0 \u201cI was interested in it [powerlifting] a little bit in high school, because I started lifting my senior year, and I was immediately doing the powerlifting-esque training, though I wasn\u2019t a power lifter yet.\u201d William said, \u201cWhen I came to Roanoke College my freshman year, I remember it was right when I started with my own coach.\u00a0 I remember being in the Cregger Center, taking up one of the two squat racks for like an hour to do my four sets.\u00a0 Then, I found a community in other power lifters who go here, my OG gang, Evan Ross and Liz Cullens.\u00a0 At one point, Evan and I, in my freshman year, drove to Ohio because he was competing in a meet, which was pretty cool.\u00a0 As my sophomore year completed, I competed at collegiate nationals, which is a really cool event.\u00a0 I took the year off my junior year, as it had just gotten to be a little bit too expensive for me to travel.\u00a0 But this year, I’ll be coaching at Nationals, where I have a few athletes competing that I work with, and then I’ll be competing at an open national event in June.\u00a0 You know, it’s a fun dichotomy to have, where I balance the power lifting and acapella presidency.\u00a0 But hey, if you’re interested in power lifting and want advice, hit me up at williplifts on Instagram.\u00a0 I’ve been doing this for a while.\u00a0 I coach men and women of all different ages and weight classes, so I’ve got a wide range in who I’ve worked with.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When William thought of his third favorite scent, he was transported.\u00a0 \u201cWhen I walk into my grandma’s house, it reminds me of home.\u00a0 There’s a very distinct smell, and it always reminds me of my childhood and my upbringing.\u00a0 My grandma grew up here, and she lives here in Roanoke, which is kind of how I found out about the school.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Talking about how his marketing major has assisted in his non-academic work, he said, \u201cI think it has really helped me with my leadership abilities in the Roanotes, and just creating and fostering an environment that people want to be passionate about.\u00a0 For coaching, you know, I have the hard skills of coaching down because I’ve gotten so much experience, but Roanoke College has really helped me with both my soft skills and my business-oriented skills.\u00a0 I am a small business owner, and all the classes that I’ve taken throughout my marketing major have really helped, especially when it comes to accounting.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Lunging back to his work with the Roanotes, William said, \u201cI would say that my favorite [song genre] is when the bass section of the choir has words.\u00a0 It\u2019s when I can say stuff, whatever genre that may be, when I’m not going dum, dum, dum, dum, dum for five minutes.\u00a0 I guess folk would be the genre that allows me to avoid that.\u00a0 But I’d say sometimes my least favorite are pop songs, just because they get me to try to be this bass that goes on for four minutes.\u00a0 Typically, though, I don’t care about the genre.\u00a0 I care that I’m doing something interesting, fun, and new.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cSo after graduation, I plan to go on a full blitz, going full-time with my online coaching.\u00a0 I’m doing pretty well right now, and I’m going to have to use the tools I’ve learned here at Roanoke to get enough clients where I can be full-time.\u00a0 I’ll probably move back to Richmond to get an apartment with my girlfriend.\u00a0 There’s a chance that she ends up going into post-grads, and I’ll follow her wherever.\u00a0 Thankfully, with my online job, I can move around wherever.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cFirst, I\u2019d like to thank my Choir Director, Dr. Pekel; he’s been really kind to me and a good person to go to for advice about Roanotes.\u00a0 I\u2019d like to thank a lot of my friends, people like my best friend, Abel Gamelin.\u00a0 If you surround yourself with intelligent and mature people, you tend to learn a lot and become a better person because of it.\u00a0 Shout out to my wolf pack.\u00a0 Shout out to my Roanotes.\u00a0 I’m thankful for everything they’ve taught me about being a leader and being a friend.\u00a0 Before Roanoke, I didn’t have friendships like this, and so I hope that I’ve made a mark on them the same way they’ve made a mark on me.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/span>Juniper Rogers<\/p>\n

Folk of ‘Noke Editor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0William Phillips, a.k.a. Willi P, is a junior from just north of Richmond, Virginia, pursuing his major in marketing.\u00a0 He is the president of the Roanotes, a fully student-led acapella group, and is a member of the concert and chamber choirs.\u00a0 To see when the Roanotes\u2019 final concert of the year will be, check their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":8818,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-folks-at-noke"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Willip.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}