Last night, the Sherman B. Ruth chapter of the National Honor Society welcomed 44 new members. Three new members were current seniors while the other 41 were juniors.

The induction ceremony began with an opening speech from President Soo Ae Ono, followed by senior Brendan Johnson singing the National Anthem.

Mayor Sefatia Romeo-Theken then took the stage, followed by Superintendent Richard Safier, and School Committee Chairperson Jonathan Pope.

Ono, Vice President Ericca Nolan, Secretary Hunter Wieckowski and Historian Maria Kotob all gave speeches on the four pillars of NHS: service, scholarship, character, and leadership.

GHS Language Department Leader Celestino Basile was asked by the senior NHS members to be the keynote speaker at the event. Basile spoke to the new inductees about the four pillars of NHS, and stressed how proud he was of all of the students’ hard work and dedication.

“I’m just so proud of how well everyone did and the amount of service hours the present members accumulated,” said NHS Advisor Rayanne Menery Sammataro, referring to the 2,500 volunteer hours and 950 tutoring hours this year’s members clocked in.

“I feel that it is so memorable because of the way people commented about how intimate the ceremony was,” continued Menery Sammataro. “The entire NHS came together to make it such a nice night. It was really nice to hear Mr. Basile’s wonderful speech.”

Menery Sammataro delivered four awards to senior members that represented the four pillars. The award for scholarship went to Caroline King and the award for service went to Soo Ae Ono. The award for character went to Meghan Craaybeek and the award for leadership went to Maria Kotob.

Maria Kotob led all past, present, and new NHS members in an oath to officially end the ceremony.

“I am really excited to have made it into the National Honor Society,” said Junior Jesse Alexander. “It was a great accomplishment, and being a part of something like this is such a great honor.”

The 44 new members include Jesse Alexander, Rachel Belanger, Delaney Benchoff, Jack Bergin, Maxwell Boucher, Joseph Brancaleone, Owen Bryan, Christina Ciaramitaro, Carolyn Cinelli, Rachel Corrao, Rose Degrange, Madison Dempsey, Rebecca Dowd, Thad Fulmer, Courtney Good, Jemima Grow, Maisie Grow, Carli Heckman, Danielle Hinckley, Katelyn Hinckley, Derek Hopkins, Maria Karol, Fisher LeVasseur, Piera LoContro, Samuel LoGrande, Jake Lucido, Sydney McKay, Austin Monell, Caroline Muniz, Dylan Murdock, Caroline O’Leary, Benjamin Oliver, Marissa Orlando, Luke Pata, Lizbeth Pena-Ortiz, Ryan Pereira, Rachael Rallo, Elizabeth Schuster, Brandon Smith, Marc Smith, Diane Story, Rachel Vincent, Lauren Wood, and Tracy Wood.