National Honor Society

I joined Princess at the high school today for a wonderful honor. She was inducted into the National Honor Society! I'm so proud of her for all of her hard work. She is very service-oriented and she has amazing grades. To be nominated she filled out the application, and got reference letters from several teachers. Then when her name was presented to the committee, she was accepted.

When I was in high school I always wanted to be part of the National Honor Society. My older siblings had been selected and since I had the second highest grades in my graduating class, and my dad was a teacher, I figured I would definitely be voted in. But they did things a little differently in our small-town school.

When I was a junior, my name was presented and one of the teachers blocked me. Yeah, that's right, all of the teachers voted every year and if even one teacher felt you shouldn't be in the society, your name was removed from the list. So our assistant basketball coach was the gym teacher for the girls. I think I told you before that I played my freshman and sophomore years, but then I decided that I wanted to take some college classes and I was working, so I didn't go out for the team. She was very angry with me for abandoning ship.

When she blocked me that first year, I thought for certain by the time I was a senior that she would have gotten over the fact that I had disappointed her. But I was wrong. I was the first Salutatorian in the recent history of Manti High School to have not been included in the National Honor Society (I say recent because Dad could only remember back about 20 years).

In fact, Dad was so angry that he refused to ever vote anyone into the National Honor Society again. It's much better the way they do it here. One teacher should not be able to negate a dozen teachers who think someone is awesome.

And Princess is pretty amazing! Congrats, my sweet girl, so proud of you!