By Jesika Henson

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With the start of the new school year, many things have changed; even the National Honor Society (NHS) has switched things up. English teacher Steven Schick is the new adviser and plans to work with his officers to make this school year both productive and memorable.

“I was asked by (the) kids in the (NHS) to take up the advisership role and I agreed,” Schick said.

Current club members hope this year will surpass past years’ projects and services. “In the past two years I was with NHS, I can say from experience that this club was on the bottom of the ‘most productive clubs’ at MHS,” said Vice President Senior Joseph Tagorda, “The most we did was tutoring at Mililani Middle. Other than that, the club was pretty much dead.”

Part of Schick’s plans for this year is to prioritize the issues that exist in the community and to seek a solution. “It was agreed that to gain participation from the students, they have to be interested and engaged in what the club is doing,” said President Senior Leyna Tamaye. Schick added, “The first one chosen so far is the problem of obesity, and so what we’re doing is bringing awareness of the problem to our school and to our community and, hopefully, along the way raising funds for some worthy cause that hasn’t been chosen yet, in terms of helping to solve the problem.”

This year there are many more students being inducted into the society compared to the 15 members that joined last year. “We’re looking to induct over 40 new members to the society, because of that we’re probably going to be expanding into different areas as well, so I’m in the process right now of talking with my officers about how we’re going to structure the society and what we’re going to be doing with it,” Schick said.

To foster efficient community service, Schick is looking into the idea of creating more committees to assist in different areas of the school. “(We’re) looking at maybe a committee within the society looking for school improvement, looking at areas within the campus where we might be able to beautify or help something out or build something, something along those lines. Looking at a committee specific to trying to determine what future projects may be, like keeping their eyes on current events, looking at maybe global and national news and something that the society might want to bring awareness about,” Schick said.

As plans are set, members hold high hopes for the outcome of this year’s projects. “This year I am seeing little bits of that prestigious club NHS is supposed to be as the officers plan on future projects,” Tagorda said, “NHS will be the best of (the) best of clubs.”

Both Schick and his officers hope to uphold the reputation of NHS through the community service projects planned for this year.