![Minutes before the Activities Fair in the gym, president Abhi Gowda ‘26 prepares the stall for his club Helping Hands, Sept. 4. A relatively new club, Helping Hands was co-started by Gowda and focuses on assisting the homeless, and just last year they succeeded in raising a couple hundred donations to send to shelters. This year, they have goals to expand, with hopes to increase volunteer opportunities and take in-person trips to shelters, as well as extend their help beyond just homeless people. “The Activities Fair gives a lot of underclassmen the opportunity to really get to know the Canyon culture, and it gives them many opportunities for service and volunteering,” Gowda said. “[Through the Activities Fair,] I hope to find a bunch of new and passionate members about our club and just get our name out there and spread awareness to the cause that we’re fighting for.”](https://rockmediaonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/1-2-1200x885.jpg)
![The winter guard team makes fifth place at the state championship finals in the Denver Coliseum, March 30. The team performed to Barnes Country's “Glitter and Gold,” lead by coaches Margo Sanford, Blair Bickerton and Anna Orgren. In their class there were a total of nine groups participating, and the top five who made it to finals received a plaque. “[Walking onto the stage] is very nerve-wracking, but also very exciting as well. When you first start color guard there's a lot of anxiety and uncertainty when you first perform in front of an audience, but once you've done it for a while, it starts to become the best part of the season,” Ella West ‘25 said. “It's very fulfilling to see an audience react to something you've put your heart and soul into.”](https://rockmediaonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Both-socal-media-nd-website-main-1-1200x846.jpg)
![April marks the 25th anniversary of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, created by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC). This month is to spread awareness of the harassment, assault and abuse that happens around the world. The symbol that represented the month was a teal ribbon; however, some survivors of assault create different symbols and movements like the TikTok trend in 2022, where survivors would tattoo Medusa on their body, in honor of her backstory in Greek Mythology. “I don't think [this month is known] at all. I rarely see anybody talk about it. I rarely see much of an emphasis on posting it online, or much discussion about it, and I feel like there needs to be way more discussion,” an anonymous source said. “I think just validating every experience that a person has gone through, regardless of the degree of it, the severity, is an essential step into making sure that people are aware that this is a very real problem in a society and that we need to do better in addressing it.”](https://rockmediaonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/IMG_0011-1200x900.jpg)
![Lesbian Visibility Day is April 26, and it’s a holiday to celebrate the lesbian community of the world. Lesbian Visibility day was established in 2008 by many queer activists and organizations who sought to raise more awareness for lesbian history and culture. “So this is why during Lesbian Visibility [Day] we celebrate and center all lesbians, both cis and trans, while also showing solidarity with all LGBTQ+ women and nonbinary people,” Linda Reily, in an article written by her, said.](https://rockmediaonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Lesbian-Visibility-day.jpeg)
The Newest Honor Society at Rock Canyon
The National English Honor Society is Introduced to Rock Canyon
The NEHS Logo, courtesy of NEHS
October 9, 2020
After four years of taking English classes, a graduate walks to the stage to grab his diploma wearing a navy blue and bumblebee yellow cord as a reward for their hard work. This new cord represents the National English Honor Society, the newest honor society here at the school.
One student is responsible for bringing the honor society to the school, Amy Kibort, a junior at the school. Kibort had the idea of establishing a National English Honor Society earlier this year due to the circumstances that COVID brought along.
“During quarantine in March of this year, I started looking into if there was an honor society for English overall. I found that there was. It’s called the National English Honor Society. The more I read about it, I found it was really perfect for what I was looking for,” Kibort said.
Kibort had hoped to join an honor society since freshman year, but at the time, Rock Canyon did not provide an honor society just for English.
“The more I read about [NEHS], I found it was really perfect for what I was looking for. In the first week of April, I wrote to Mr. Watkins to see if he knew if there was a way to start a chapter of NEHS at Rock Canyon, or if a chapter had been in existence before and didn’t work out for some reason,” Kibort said.
For sponsors for NEHS, Kibort reached out to English teachers Mr. Watkins and Mr. McBride to help out with the club.
“Mr. Watkins was my Honors English II teacher. He was immediately supportive of the idea in starting a chapter and I made plans and researched everything I could about NEHS to try and have it launch in the fall of this school year,” Kibort said.
The NEHS’s goal is to be able to recognize students who are excelling in the field of English. However, each school chapter’s goal is different.
“RCHS NEHS members benefit through supplemental development and practice of their skills/talents in language, literature, and writing to help achieve academic and career goals while being recognized for their English accomplishments,” Kibort said.
The National English Honor Society was founded in 2005, and since then has had the mission to recognize those who excel in writing, and further develop those abilities. At the moment, NEHS has over 700 different chapters internationally, most residing in the United States. The NEHS Chapter was approved in early September and is planning to officially start operations after Fall Break, with applications closing in early October.
NEHS is planning on holding conversations about literary genres and forms of writing, writing opportunities, and contests such as NaNoWriMo, virtual interviews with people in the book industry, and many more events.
When English is your natural language, sometimes it can be easy to forget how important it really is. Kibort wanted to ensure that people knew the importance of the literature, culture, and meaning of the English language, and she did so by bringing the National English Honor Society to the school. The NEHS coming to school means that students who excel in English can express the importance of the language through various means outside of their English classes.
For more information on NEHS, go to http://www.nehs.us/