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Honor Society welcomes new members
The Nevada High School chapter of the National Honor Society welcomed 32 new members during their annual induction ceremony at the Ella Maxwell Center for the Performing Arts on Monday evening.
“You guys are here for a reason,” keynote speaker and math teacher Tina Sudkamp said. “You know what it takes to earn good grades. You have sacrificed your time to even be here tonight and some of you are probably thinking about all the things you have to do yet tonight and hoping that I really don’t talk for an hour. You know what it takes to do community service, you know what it takes to be a leader, you have all of these skills to be successful and you are successful. I am very very proud of each and every one of you. Your teachers and administrators are proud of you. Your families are proud of you. You have done a lot of work to get here and you deserve this honor. Where you go from here now — couple things I have learned from [a professor of hers] — he didn’t tell us that we could skip class because he knew it’s ok to skip class. That wasn’t his point. His point was there are sometimes things more important than what’s going on here and that you have to take the time to think about what is important to you and to take the time yourself. You kind of have to be in the moment and appreciate what’s around you.”
Sudkamp asked the senior students how many days they had before graduation.
“Eighty-three days yes, 83 very very quick days,” she said. “Sophomores, juniors, it seems likes a long time until your going to be to that point — 83 days — but it will be here quick. I had a student tell me once that the days seem to drag on forever but the years go by really really fast.”
“Seniors is that true? Everything drags on forever?” she asked prompting laughter from the students.
“Take the time now to appreciate your friendships and the things that are important to you,” Sudkamp said. “The second thing I learned in that class and why no one really skipped is that he really helped us to know what’s important besides just our majors. Most of us in that class — it was a gen-ed class — we weren’t going to be majoring in English or literature and he knew that but what he wanted to do was to help us grow as people. I don’t even remember the professor’s name and I really don’t remember most of the books and the titles that we read but I do remember that he impressed upon us the importance of knowing who you are and what kind of person that you want to be. So if you don’t know what your major is, you don’t know what you want to do after you graduate, think about what kind of person you want to be because that is most important. Your jobs will change, your career will change, your friends are going to change but who do you want to be after this time here at high school?”
Sudkamp asked each of the students to take a few minutes when they got home, and stand in their driveway, take a deep breath and enjoy the moment.
“As you’re appreciating the moment, and the good things that you have in your life also think about what kind of person that you would like to be,” she said. “What kind of friend would you like to be, how do you want to be a service to your community when you get older, what kind of family would you like to have, how would you like to treat your family? What is important to you as you get older?”
The 32 inductees joined 86 of their distinguished classmates who maintain the rigorous standards of the society.
In order to qualify for membership, a student must have a grade point average of 3.5 on a 4.0 scale, complete at least one full semester at NHS and complete the application process.
Prior to the induction of new members, the chapter officers spoke on the NHS insignia, character, service, leadership and scholarship. Current officers include president Grace Jackson, vice-president Clara Haverstic, secretary Karishma Goswami, treasurer Lauren Eaton and historian Luke Sudkamp.
Each of the 32 new members were then presented their NHS pin and membership card by principal Gerald Whalen: senior C. Thomas Davis; juniors Jayden Ast, Konnor Ast, Caleb Longobardi, Holden Petitt, Amara Pippin; sophomores Calli Beshore, Julia Cassidy, Teagan Charles, Noah Cheaney, Malani Coonrod, Payge Dahmer, Alyssa Davis, Morgan Douglas, Lindley Ferry, Dalton Gayman, Madison Hyder, Jaeci Joustra, Katelin Kimberlin, Alexis Leighty, Haleigh Leisure, Maggie Leisure, Laura Lunkenheimer, Brock Marquardt, Stacy Pennington, Esther Rea, Braden Russel, Madison Shipley, Benjamin Sudkamp, Dacey Turner, Alyssa Wilson and Brynn Wolfe.
National Honor Society was founded by the National Association of Secondary School Principals in 1921 in Pittsburgh, Pa. The organization grew to more than 1,000 chapters by 1930. Their four main purposes are to create enthusiasm for scholarship, stimulate a desire to render service, to promote leadership and to develop the character of students in secondary schools.