All of East’s language honor societies celebrated their new and sustaining members on Apr. 3, 2024 at the Honor Society Inductions and Awards Ceremony, an event in East’s PAC organized by the World Languages Department. 

At East, students can pick between learning Chinese, French, German, and Spanish. While not required to graduate, some East students only take two years of a foreign language class in order to satisfy college application requirements. However, students who are committed to learning a foreign language during all four years of high school and maintaining a high GPA are eligible to apply to their language’s honor society. 

Kurt Gulbro, the World Languages Department chair, felt that being accepted into a language honor society is very notable. 

“Language honor societies are some of the harder honor societies to get into. Parents should be very proud,” Gulbro said.

Each of the four language honor societies welcomed their returning members to the stage and celebrated their commitment and hard work. The Spanish National Honor Society even awarded medals to their second-year and third-year members. 

Chloe Turucz, a senior at East, received a medal for maintaining her membership in Spanish National Honor Society for a third year.

“This feels very special, especially since our class is the first group of third years our school’s chapter of SNHS has ever had,” Turucz said.

Additionally, the German National Honor Society honored multiple members for their accomplishments this school year. Anna Hog, the German teacher at East, recognized committed members of German Club, winners of the Christian Kennerly Memorial Scholarship, students who competed in the UIC German High School Day Competition, students who supported SPARKKinderKlub, and students who performed very well on the National German Exam. 

After recognizing returning members, each honor society inducted their new members. The new members were given candles and stood in a line. Once one person’s candle was lit, they lit each other’s candles one by one. 

Zakaria Rahali, a sophomore at East, was inducted into the French National Honor Society.

“The person who initially had the flame was a senior member, so it was like passing the flame on to new members. It kind of gave the whole thing a sense of formality and a sense of significance. It felt a bit more prestigious,” Rahali said.

Afterward, the new members recited a pledge in their honor society’s language. 

Manya Srivastava, a senior at East and a third-year member of the French National Honor Society, led the new members of the French National Honor Society in saying their pledge. 

“I was happy to play a role in bringing the French language to more students. It has been very rewarding to see the honor society grow the past few years,” Srivastava said.

Next school year, East will be adding American Sign Language classes.

“I’m not sure if there are ASL honor societies, but if there are, we’ll have it,” Gulbro said.

Katelin Hong and Alessandra Di Paolo are staff writers for Oswego East’s online news magazine The Howl.