Eight Las Animas High School students were inducted into the National Honor Society at a banquet on Oct. 7, with the Colorado Commissioner of Education in attendance.
Alexandria Alvidrez, Anjelica Alvidrez, Allie Brown, Asa Brown, Brittany Fritz, Beth Myers, Melissa Simmons and Kayla Snead joined Melissa Cortez, Savannah Grasmick, Alexis Harvin, Blain Miller and Marcus Skiles as members of the National Honor Society.
Sponsor Peter Wybenga said, “it was sort of cute,” how each student worried about whether they would be admitted to the society.
Grasmick introduced the guest speaker, Dwight D. Jones, Colorado Commissioner of Education.
Jones was appointed Colorado’s Commissioner of Education in June 2007 by a unanimous vote of the Colorado State Board of Education.
Jones, who attended Kansas State University, started as an elementary school teacher in Wichita, Kan., going on to serve as principal for elementary, middle and high schools.
Jones told the gathered crowd about his father being a landowner in Sharon Springs, Kan., in 1962.
His parents had nine children. All the children attended college, some getting advanced degrees.
“My parents just demanded it,” he said.
In Kansas, it was required that high school students have a “C” average to play sports and that was the GPA Jones had.
Jones wanted to attend KSU after graduation.
“Boy, I just knew that was the place for me,” he said.
When the recruiter came to Sharon Springs wearing his purple jacket with the KSU Wildcat on it, Jones was excited.
He was in a room with a group of students hearing from the recruiter, when the counselor came in and told him he didn’t belong there.
The counselor accused him of just wanting to get out of class, telling Jones that he was going to attend Vocational Technical School.
Jones said he wondered if it was because he was African American, or if the counselor told him that because that was what he had showed the school he could do.
“I had not put forth my best effort,” he said.
In his senior year, Jones was a straight “A” student, he said.
Jones commended Las Animas High School on creating an atmosphere where it was “cool” to be smart.
He also brought messages from the Colorado Department of Education, the Colorado Board of Education and Governor Bill Ritter, thanking the students for rising above expectations.
