When reflecting on why she wanted to be an officer, junior 2018-19 public relations officer Ilsa Olsen said she saw it as an opportunity to further her experience in National Honors Society.

“I really like National Honors Society. It has given me opportunities to go out and do more for my community, and I have even found two long-term volunteer opportunities that I do every week,” Olsen said. “I only found those because National Honors Society got me out there to do it. I really want to be a part of organizing NHS and be influential in the club.”

According to junior 2018-19 National Honors Society (NHS) president Ayanna Nathan, the officers are an important part of NHS because they shape the club.

“The officers’ role goes along with our pillars for NHS. We have 4 pillars: service, character, honor and leadership. I think developing leadership skills now is the key to creating very influential leaders now and in the future,” Nathan said.

According to NHS adviser Jillian Merkle, officers are key to NHS’s success because there is so much to do.

“(NHS) is pretty much a student-led group, so you need those leaders for the club to actually function. There are a bunch of different things that need to get done with NHS so having them all be delegated to different tasks makes it really successful,” Merkle said.

Junior Marian Mohamud, the 2018-19 vice-president of NHS, said she wants to help students find a volunteering position they enjoy.

“I personally want to find a variety of opportunities for the students to take in. I feel like many students assume (NHS) is just for college, but if we all find a certain role in our community and a certain opportunity to volunteer, we will enjoy it more and want to actually volunteer more. We won’t think about it as a duty or obligation just to be part of a club,” Mohamud said.

Merkle said she is looking forward to seeing what the officers will do next year because they were all so motivated during the interview process.

“I am really excited to see what they end up doing and wanting to do. In their interviews they all had these really great ideas of things they want to bring to NHS and some things they might want to change about it,” Merkle said. “They were all just really passionate about volunteering and giving back to the community, and so I think that is going to be really cool to see.”

Junior 2018-19 NHS historian Sophia Davenport said she wants to make the process of getting the required individual hours smoother for students.

“I want to make it easier for people to get individual hours because this year a lot of people were confused. I think we should early on provide people with a list of good options for individual hours,” Davenport said. “Some of them you have to apply for, so knowing in advance what you need to do would be helpful.”

According to junior 2018-19 NHS secretary Olivia Mosby, the officers can help students by keeping the club running smoothly.

“The biggest part of (being an officer) is organizing the meetings, and making sure everybody knows what’s going on,” Mosby said. “Also planning the group projects so people can meet the requirements for NHS, just keeping track of things and doing everything they can so that people get the most out of the experience.”

Nathan said the 2018-19 officers plan to improve NHS meetings to be more exciting for students.

“Something that I have noticed this year is that people aren’t excited to go to meetings for NHS. It’s something that they go to school a little early for and they kind of just tolerate,” Nathan said.

According to Olsen, the new officers plan to make meetings more worthwhile and focused.

“I think we all kind of want to change (the meetings), specifically make them more intentional and so they have a specific purpose, so that people don’t feel like they have to get up in the morning and do nothing,” Olsen said.

Nathan said next year she would like to bring NHS’s impact closer to home, instead of focusing on charities outside of Park.

“I would really love to do next year is partner with a specific charity or organization in SLP. I would really like to ground it back in our own community,” Nathan said. “Maybe partner with an organization like STEP, Children First or even the Birdfeeder here at the high school rather than just sending 50 people to Feed My Starving Children, which is wonderful and I want people to do that, but I would rather us be more community-based.”

According to Merkle, NHS inductions will be in late April.