Near the beginning of each winter semester, before classes really begin to accelerate again, De Soto High School takes a moment to recognize its highest academic achievers from the previous two semesters. On Jan. 8 between the girls’ and boys’ basketball games against Leavenworth, every student who kept at least a 3.7 GPA during the spring and fall 2018 semesters received an academic letter for their efforts in the classroom.

Senior Sean Eggers, one of the 258 DHS students who received the award, had many reasons why the award held personal incentive.

“Not only does it [the academic letter] look good on your college resume it also makes you feel better about yourself because you’re rewarded for working hard and your parents obviously love stuff like that,” Eggers said.

Associate Principal Leah Vomhof sees the short ceremony as an opportunity to showcase students whose accomplishments are not necessarily publicly visible.

“We do a lot of [recognition] publicly for our sports teams because that’s easy for the community and parents to observe and watch, but it’s less obvious what goes on in the classroom everyday,” Vomhof said.

Though in the past some have complained about the brevity and informality of the ceremony, Vomhof cited other recognition events such as the induction of National Honor Society members as examples of more formal and intimate ceremonies for academic success.

“This is one way to give students their academic letter and pin … but to also do it in an event where not just their parents are going to see them,” Vomhof explained. “An athletic event is the best place to do that.”

Eggers acknowledged the challenges of recognizing over 200 individuals, but still felt that something could be done to improve the value of the award for the students who receive it.

“I think that because of how many students there are, it sucks that they can’t recognize each student individually … there could be improvements, but I think it’s okay,” Eggers said.

Notably, even as the DHS student population has significantly grown over the past three years, the number of academic letter recipients have proportionally increased, signaling that DHS has not lost any ground in terms of academic success due to its growth. As a result, there will likely be even larger groups of academic achievers to celebrate in the years to come.