SoRo High School Honor Society
Members Serve the Community
by Heather Burbine

Membership in the National Honor Society or NHS is the greatest honor a student at South Royalton High School can receive.

Each year, new members are selected by a board of faculty members, based on the students’ leadership, scholarship, service and character. The new members are inducted into NHS at a formal ceremony toward the end of their junior year and then begin their jobs as NHS members.

Every student selected is required to give at least one hour of service to the community each week as an individual project. Those hours are aside from the group projects performed together upon request or desire. Also each member is expected to act as a role model, show good character, and be a positive influence to all the others around them.

The members of this year’s National Honor Society are Caleb Atwood, president; Lauren Farnsworth, vice president; Cal Wilmot, treasurer; Heather Burbine, secretary; Melissa Cole, Jane Manby, Lucas Sanford-Long, and Karen Bascom.

So far this year, the group has done a Saturday morning bottle drive to raise money for text books in Guatemala, painted the United States map and basketball court lines on the playground, and read morning and afternoon announcements in the high school. The upcoming holidays are bringing more plans and requests of the group.

For individual projects, Atwwod and Wilmot are doing recycling throughout the school once a week, and working on a grant for a better recycling program. Sanford-Long is also playing a role in a green school as he is working on compost for the school cafeteria. Farnsworth, who spent the last year on exchange in France, is working with the third grade class on developing a little French vocabulary.

Cole is organizing women’s self defense courses to be offered at the school. Manby is volunteering at a food bank and Bascom is teaching Sunday school. I write school news articles like this one and help supervise the third and fourth grade lunch recess duty. I have also coached a kindergarten soccer team.

All the members have chosen projects where they really enjoy volunteering their time. NHS is an influential program for the members and a great opportunity to connect the students and the community.

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