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National Honor Society (NHS), is a national, extracurricular program. The program’s purpose is to get kids involved in service, leadership, scholarships and to encourage academic excellence.
NHS has been at NS since 1984. Although the program has changed since then, it still values the same principles.
“It’s been an important club organization at North Sanpete High School for a long time,” vice principal Ryan Syme said. “It’s one that has historical backing, and the fact that other schools have national honor societies gives it validity.”
NHS members must meet certain requirements such as attending two service activities, and maintaining a 3.5 GPA. The NHS values hard work and commitment.
“It’s important to work hard for school, in school, for academic, athletic and leadership achievement,” language arts teacher Kaylene Johnson said, “but students who can achieve high grades and assist others by getting involved in service are truly admirable.”
For the last 15 years, Johnson has been the advisor for the NHS, but soon, Johnson will be passing on the torch to math teacher Matt Syme.
“I was approached by our administrators and they more or less asked me … if I wanted to do it.” Matt Syme said, “And I said sure, you know, why not?”
When Matt Syme taught at Wayne High School in 2008, he worked with NHS.
“When I first started teaching 17 years ago I was a National Honor Society advisor,” Matt Syme said, “I was an advisor for 3 or 4 years.”
Looking towards the future, Syme plans to work alongside other service programs here at the NS.
“We have a couple different groups and clubs here at the high school that are also service organizations,” Matt Syme said. “We may partner up with them and work on some projects, but if we get enough people, we may do some things on our own.”
NHS doesn’t only undertake service projects, Matt Syme hopes to plan other activities such as socials, game nights, or even cleaning up the bleachers after sports games.
“ I really just wanna see how many people I can get in the organization and then we can make plans from there,” Matt Syme said.
NHS is a place for students to belong. A fun way to get involved and meet new people.
“Just a bunch of really positive students together having fun,” Johnson said, “even just eating hot dogs and ice cream sandwiches; everybody was happy so it was fun.”
The program is also about increasing individual and group involvement throughout the high school and community.
“I think students want to matter,” Johnson said. “They want to do something that matters. I think that was the best thing, when we really had officers and people would randomly give us ideas for things we could do… That was the best, because I think people want to do things that make a difference.”
Overall, the NHS is a club for the people that are willing to serve the school and community, and work together to establish something great.
“The National Honors Society is gonna be a group where we come together, we support each other, we become friends,” Matt Syme said, “My hope is that we can turn into a culture building organization where we change the culture of the school for the better… So come with your ideas, come with your thoughts and we’ll make it wonderful.”
