When walking across the stage at graduation, the NHS cord isn’t just an accessory- it’s a symbol of the hard work, leadership, and commitment that sets students apart.
The National Honors Society, also known as NHS, is a national organization which is founded on four pillars: leadership, service, character, and scholarship.
“To be a good candidate and NHS member we want to have strengths in all 4 of those categories,” NHS advisor Jennifer Hittle stated, The first pillar of NHS is leadership. In order for everyone to thrive in this area, it’s important that their leaders demonstrate these capabilities themselves. NHS president Ralph Walter and vice president Ashley Verhey, both seniors, exemplify this pillar. “I wanted to run for a leadership position because I believed I would be able to handle more responsibility.” said Walter.
He saw who ran last year and noticed how they were also involved in a lot of other activities and still had time for this role. He stated how he originally ran for secretary/treasurer which handles all of NHS’s service hours, emails, and finances, because after he gets his education he wants to handle and analyze data.
“I thought this would be a job that I would be really looking forward to, but then the president opening was a blessing in disguise.”
Verhey explained why she wanted to be vice president. “I wanted to run for my position for college honestly, but also because it was something I was interested in doing,”
she stated. “I knew I didn’t want to run for president, because that takes a lot of time, and I didn’t think I would be able to do that with my sports and activities going on,”
Another pillar of NHS revolves around service. “I love seeing all of the ways our students are helping the community through their variety of services they have accumulated,” Hittle said. “And I do believe our 2 main service projects in the fall and the spring are very impactful.” These service projects consist of projects like raising money and items for specific organizations.
In the past their have been projects related to giving items and raising money for people in the military and kids in hospice.
These projects can be decided by people reaching out to the school, or the president reaching out to specific organizations to ask if they need help.
When asked about the plans for the fall service project this year, Walter stated, “The plan so far for the fall service project is to have a winter gloves, boots, and hoodie drive.” NHS is partnering with Highland Community Sharing. The goal of this year’s drive is to focus on collecting these items for middle and high school students, and they can be new or gently used. “We always hear back from those organizations about how happy they are.” Part of NHS is the requirement of getting 12 hours of community service per semester as well as participating in the fall and spring service projects.
The third pillar of NHS is character. This idea comes in to play with the application process. “The applications that students fill out have a couple of criteria,” Hittle mentioned. Some of the main ideas they focus on are looking at consistent service hours and involvement in serving the community. It is also important to be involved in activities inside and outside of school. The last main element they look for is positive teacher recommendations where the applicants are being assessed on their character and leadership.
Not only are grades important for getting into NHS, members have to be identified by teachers and staff as students who can be counted on to do the right thing.
The last pillar for NHS is scholarship; this pillar is focused on the ability to learn and can be demonstrated through effort, a positive mindset, and the desire to grow. “I think NHS is a great way to get involved in the community,” Hittle mentioned.
“Sometimes it doesn’t come to mind to do that first. But having those goals every semester and having the drive to be involved in the community is something NHS is really good at and it also gives kids an opportunity to run for an officer position in an organization, and give the leadership experience so when they graduate they feel a lot more comfortable doing those things.”