National Honor Society Welcomes 30 Students in Ceremony
The desire to help and improve the community is felt by many students throughout Parkway North. On Wednesday, Nov. 8, 30 students were inducted into National Honor Society during a ceremony at Parkway North. In order to enter the society, students had to have a 3.75 GPA during their junior or senior year of high school and participate in activities outside of the school. They also have to establish strong character that stands out from others.
“Being a member of NHS shows a level of accomplishment because not everyone can be a member,” said senior Mikayel Darbinyan, president of North’s Honor Society. “You really have to show outstanding qualities both academic and with your character.”
Members do this by following National Honor Society’s four pillars of behavior. These pillars are scholarship: commitment to doing the best without the need for an award; service: desire to help the community; leadership: taking initiative to aid others; and character: demonstrating respect, responsibility, and citizenship in all of their actions.
“You have to demonstrate good character, leadership, and involvement in the school, and a commitment to community service,” said NHS sponsor Debbie Banashek-Twist.
Once a part of National Honor Society, students are expected to not only maintain their 3.75 GPA throughout their last two years of high school, but to also volunteer both inside and outside the school.
“[Members] provide tutoring in the building through A+ during ac lab; they run building events like the blood drive,” said Banashek-Twist. “We do car washes to raise money. We do projects at a retirement home. It’s mainly a service organization.”
As for the reasons students have to join NHS, many feel a strong desire to help those around them in new ways, exhibiting both the service and scholarship pillars of the society, and see NHS as the perfect way to do that.
“It offers me an opportunity to do stuff around the school,” said junior Anya Carpenter, who was accepted into the Society during the ceremony.
Another reason students wanted to join National Honor Society was to take initiative in leading these events to both provide service to those who need it and improving their leadership skills.
Darbinyan, along with parliamentarian senior Sohana Pai, helps organize these events which helps him refine his leadership skills.
“We do toy drives for people in our community to help them financially,” said Darbinyan. “This year, I organized what’s called ‘Senior Homecoming’ where we went over to retirement homes and helped organize a dance for them.”
While helping others, leading community members, and maintaining good grades helps build character, what makes National Honor Society so special for those involved is the word “Society”. Being a part of a supportive group helps individuals build and maintain character.
“You get to be in a group with a lot of people who support you, and that word, Society, is a word that really describes what kind of environment NHS is,” said Darbinyan.
It is with this unity that NHS transcends status as just an honor roll and becomes a bookmark in the lives of everybody who has been apart of it.
“I think the combination of everything NHS stood for was everything I stood for and the people that would be in NHS would be my people,” said Carpenter.
By Tanner Boyd, staff writer