Between the holidays, finals and winter sports, clubs forget to think about their own accomplishments as the semester wraps up. While many reflect on past events, most clubs also look to the next semester for new opportunities.

Math Team

Not only did the Math Team win the Southwestern Math Conference, but they also competed in their first ever Math Madness competition.

According to senior and Co-President Ian Klein, the Math Madness competition is an online tournament that allowed the team to compete in a national round each week. The teams are then scored using bracket-style organization. After a few weeks, the team placed 69th in the nation.

“The competition was very laid back and fun compared to other competitions, and the team performed better than usual,” Klein said. “Top 100 in the nation isn’t something that the math team normally achieves.”

NHS

Long before the annual food drive, blood drive and tutoring began this year, NHS hosted its second annual freshman orientation activities fair. During the district-scheduled freshman orientation, NHS invited every club to create a booth that displayed events they participate in and a new member sign-up sheet.

Senior and NHS President Anna Johnson accredits the growth in club members, specifically the member expansion she has witnessed in math team and science club, to the success of the club fair.

“Math team had the biggest turnout of freshman that the team has ever seen,” Johnson said. “It’s great to see students are getting involved in clubs earlier and finding friends with similar interests, all while making a positive impact on our community.”

National English Honor Society

Despite being one of two new honor societies at EHS, NEHS spent first semester planning events for following semesters including a short story contest, book drive and an elementary school storytelling day.

To execute the short story contest, NEHS is partnering with the school’s other new honor society NAHS. After NEHS committee members, pick the short story winners, NAHS members will illustrate them.

“We hope to show that anyone can write creatively, and that it is not as boring as it might seem in English class,” senior and NEHS President Caroline Kaminsky said. “This is also an opportunity for students to express themselves and share their ideas with others.”

National Art Honor Society

EHS’s newest honor society, NAHS, is working with Key Club to organize art days for the students enrolled in the Functional Life Skills Program. At the event, students, Key Club members and NAHS members will be paired up to work on pinch pots, watercolor paintings and coloring pages.

“We want [the art day] to serve as an opportunity for both members and students to develop leadership, patience and a bond over a love for art.”

Interact

In effort to start a new first semester fundraiser, Interact Club arranged the first annual finish-the-lyric trivia night.

“Every year, Interact hosts a spring fundraiser called Letters of Hope,” senior and Interact President Mehak Baig said. “So this year we decided to have a fall fundraiser as well.”

For the event, students were allowed to create groups with up to 10 members. Each team could bring their own food and drinks to refresh themselves while attempting to finish the lines of different songs. All of the proceeds from the night were donated to the Alzheimer’s Association.

“It was a blast,” Baig said. “People were singing along to the songs, so the environment was buzzing with activity. Now that we have things into full swing, next year we will hopefully have a bigger turn out.”

Key Club

Every year, Key Club hosts a Halloween party for the students enrolled in the Functional Life Skills Program, but this year they turned their focus from just EHS students to students from all over the district.

“We wanted to allow students of different ages to interact,” senior and Key Club President Taylor Mateyka said. “That way, students who are moving to new schools, like transitioning from middle school to high school, could form friendships with people they would be seeing the next year.”

The event was held at EHS South where students could dance, play games and trick-or-treat down a decorated hallway.

“Everyone was having a blast,” Mateyka said. “We had a huge turnout from all of the age groups also, which was our goal.”

Meanwhile, the Project Unify football team, EHS’s unified flag football team, not only travelled to the state tournament for the first time, but they also brought home the state trophy.

“We went in thinking we weren’t going to win,” sophomore Key Club Activities Director and Project Unify team member Emily Magruder said. “Just being at state, representing our school for the first time was awesome. We made it clear that we were proud of our accomplishments already, no matter how the day ended. So pulling out a win was exciting; there were lots of tears and hugs.”

EPIC

To promote a healthy lifestyle and drug/alcohol free activities, EPIC arranged the third annual football tailgate. Despite the rain, about 200 fans showed up to play cornhole and hillbilly golf, jam to tunes provided by the Drama Club and eat hot dogs cooked by FFA.

“Our tailgate [was our biggest accomplishment so far],” junior EPIC Council member Hannah Beck said. “It attracted a bunch of students to spend a night doing something safe and hanging out with friends.”

French Club

During its second year under the direction of Mrs. Schwartz and Ms. Symanski, junior and French Club Officer Abby Huffstutler said the club has improved its organization and membership.

“I feel like our biggest accomplishments so far this year hasn’t really been any event, but the club itself,” Huffstutler said.

However, French Club did celebrate French National week– their largest event of the semester.  In observation of French National Week, French Club invited its members to participate in crepe making, fondue and cheese tasting, movie days and bon bon sales.

“We had a full house for crepe making and the cheese and fondue tasting,” Huffstutler said. “We completely sold out of bonbons by the fourth day, so overall we were happy with the turnout.”

Spanish Club

The Day of the Dead parade is traditionally Spanish Club’s largest event. According to senior and Spanish Club Treasurer Carl Eastman, most of first semester is spent choreographing, planning and making costumes for the parade.

“We were on a huge time crunch,” senior and Spanish Club Historian Callista Poiter said. “We had only about half of the time we did [most] years we do the parade, but the participants worked so hard and so well that we [accomplished] a ton at every rehearsal.”

German Club

Every year, German Club invites the other language clubs to attend Oktoberfest, a traditional German fall festival. At the event, students eat authentic bratwurst and desserts and compete in a sauerkraut eating contest, potato sack race and tug-of-war.

“Over 100 students came,” junior German Club Officer Lindsey Hohlt said. “It brought a lot of people from the different language clubs together for some good food and games.”

MedOc

Because most of Medical Occupations Club events happen during second semester, club members spent first semester planning and preparing. Members are currently studying for HOSA, a state competition that tests participants in medical-related simulations, such as CPR.

To raise money for HOSA, MedOc members dress up as princesses and throw a princess tea party for children. Fifty percent of ticket proceeds go towards HOSA fees.

“We expect to do well at HOSA,” senior and MedOc Secretary Caity Thompson said. “Every year we just keep getting better and better.”

FCA

Like French Club, FCA is concentrating on the club mood instead of fixating on events. FCA officers designate their own small groups at meetings in an effort to build a relationship with all of the members. According to senior and FCA Officer Katie Malcherek, smaller groups also allow the individual members to better focus on their faith.

“It may not seem like that big of a deal, but I think that the relationships between everyone in the huddle is one of the most important and unique parts of FCA,” Malcherek said.

FFA

As the holiday season comes to a close, FFA moves on from its poinsettia sales to the spring sale where they will be selling Geraniums, Wave Petunias and Million Bells.

“[We hope members will] see both the business side of running a greenhouse while also putting in the hard work of planting the plants and sustaining the plants until the sale,” junior and FFA President Dalton Panzau said.

Science Club/Olympiad

While Science Club focuses on exploration and experimentation, Science Olympiad must practice written tests, lab design and execution, lab practicals and engineering challenges to prepare for the competition in the spring.

Senior and Co-President Helena Frisbee-Firsching predicts the team will have success because of member’s dedication to their team.

“This year we have a lot of experienced members who performed well at the competition in previous years, but there are also a lot of members who are new to the competition and are already jumping in with dedication that equally matches our returning team members,” Frisbee-Firsching said. “By having a full varsity and JV team, we are able to participate in all of the events, which will boost our team scores.”

Animal Rescue Club

This semester, Animal Rescue Club, in collaboration with Wang Gang, arranged an eat-and-share to support the Bizzie’s Lymphoma Cancer Foundation. They also had a bracelet sale that contributed to the $900 they raised for dog cancer treatments.