PRESQUE ISLE, Maine – My life today is a never-ending cycle of questioning, “What time is it?” I don’t expect this to change anytime soon, and I know I’m not alone. We are driven today by schedules and marked dates and pushed meetings, catching up on sleep when we get to it. Now that the National Honor Society state convention is over, hopefully I can catch up on that sleep.
The state convention was held March 15-16 and was circled on my tropical island calendar with an orange Sharpie. The date was chosen for who knows how long by people who inadvertently decided for hundreds of teenagers for these days what they would be doing, who they would be seeing, and knowing for sure each would be within a certain mile radius of one location.
Dancing, speakers, state elections, and upwards of eight hours on a school bus together is what our NHS chapter has to look forward to each year. It’s one of those marked dates, along with our annual induction ceremony, blood drive, and organization of and volunteering at the Special Olympics. These events are what the community as a whole may recognize and appreciate year-to-year from our NHS.
Teachers are reminded at the same time each fall that it’s time for the selection of new members. They file through applications and select qualified students who possess the four pillars of character, service, scholarship, and leadership. It is certain that students chosen have high standards for themselves first. After induction, it is apparent that their advisors, teachers, and principal have increased standards for them, as well.
As the clock ticks away our high school years (we may or may not regret), we race to fill our calendars with what we must do and what we would like to do. Every time frame seems to be filled somehow – years and months and days and minutes. While the repetition of major projects occurs annually, we are a busy chapter all the time. On the first Wednesday of each month, two advisors and a couple dozen teenagers pile into a sometimes overheated Spanish classroom to cover an integral agenda.
Shorter still are the weeks and days in which we all live separate lives. In and out of school, we are voluntarily contributing to our community and to society. Sunday through Saturday, we all have circled squares on busy pages. Collectively we tutor, winterize homes, donate blood, volunteer/baby-sit, help elementary teachers in their classrooms, donate time to local non-profits, stock the pantry at the soup kitchen, care for laboratory ecosystems, run kids’ games at the annual Peanut Carnival, tour guide at Freshman Orientation, and are forever picking up other volunteer opportunities.
Most members of NHS are also active members of at least one other community service group. While we’re not catching up on sleep, we’re keeping our grades at least at honor-roll level while remaining exemplary leaders. By the second, we are maintaining high standards of character. Resistance of pressures and poor choices frame our integrity through each fleeting thought and consequential action. We are true to ourselves and to those who regard our positions of moral responsibility.
This March we piled onto a bus, each month we cram into a classroom, each week we volunteer, each day we are scholars and leaders, and in each second we exhibit outstanding character.
National Honor Society is more than wearing another cord on graduation day or making our parents proud. We are given time in which to do as much as we can, and along the way keep track of obligations and commitments. As seniors, about half of us will not return next year to a stifling Spanish classroom. Though our time there will have run out, we will remain in our community and in service to it because National Honor Society did not make us who we are. Our parents did not make us who we are. We did. Regardless of whether or not a state convention or organizing an agenda will set me back on sleep, I keep picking up my orange Sharpie. I don’t expect this to change anytime soon, and I know I’m not alone.
