Huntington’s Enthusiastic Spanish Honor Society Chapter

Huntington High School’s Spanish Honor Society has been active around the school, pursuing a list of objectives with typical enthusiasm. The organization is led by a group of dynamic teenagers.

The chapter’s executive board includes Deanna Elvir (president), Charlotte Curtin (vice president), Kimberly Granados (treasurer), Damaris Mani-Munoz (recording secretary), Sophie Lange (corresponding secretary), Toni Reyes-Sorto (administrative assistant) and Celina Flores-Lopez (historian). Teacher Nadine Araoz serves as the faculty advisor.

Formally known as La Sociedad Honoraria Hispanica, the National Spanish Honor Society is an academic honor society focused on Spanish language excellence in secondary education and promotes continuity of interest in Spanish studies. The motto is “¡Todos a una!” which translates as “All together for one goal!”

“Spanish Honor Society has so far been a success,” Ms. Curtin said. “We just had our HIHI (Huntington Interfaith Homeless Initiative) clothes donation during December. We have been having monthly meetings and bake sales, as well as group socials, where we do fun activities with the ENL students and we get to use our Spanish to converse with them. We are currently trying to plan a soccer tournament!”

The organization was founded in 1953 by the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese. “The purpose of the society is to recognize high achievement of high school students in the Spanish and Portuguese languages and to promote a continuing interest in Hispanic and Portuguese studies,” according to the parent organization.

“The year has been going really well,” Ms. Lange said. “We hold our bake sales very often. The group socializes with English and Spanish speaking students together, which has really improved my Spanish personally.”

New inductees are asked to “promise to devote myself to the study of the Spanish language in order to master it, remembering that a language can be a strong tie between persons of differing origins of race or religion. As a citizen of my country, I promise to promote friendship and understanding between it and the other lands of the world. This is my promise and my oath.”

The Huntington chapter’s members have demonstrated a deep interest in the Spanish language.

“Everything is going very well with Spanish Honor Society,” Ms. Mani-Munoz said. “We will be holding our next group social very soon and a lot of the new native Spanish speakers are very excited to attend. Our HIHI donation was a huge success and we can’t thank anyone enough for all the donations made!”