Recognition of hard work came L's way this week

 This week, recognition of hard work came L's way.  First, on Tuesday night, she was inducted into the HHS National Honor Society along with some of her friends.

This picture is of the ceremony where they came on stage after hearing their name read.

Here she is (2nd from left) with some of her friends who were also inductees that night.  The three girls on the right have been L's friends throughout elementary school and now into high school.  

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Then Thursday was the swim team banquet at DSC. First, a word about swim team.  The swim team is actually comprised of three high school teams:  HHS, DHHS and PVHS.  The combined team is called Tridents.  They practice together but they compete by high school. There were sixty-five swimmers on Tridents who finished the season.  HHS had eleven who finished the season, just to give a number comparison. Here are some of the HHS swimmers with three of the four coaches (not all team members attended the banquet and unfortunately the other two who attended the banquet left before this picture was taken).  Back row: KL, LS, LG, SF, and two assistant coaches.  Front row: LB, BB, and the head coach.

  L and others with better than a 3.7 grade point average received a certificate for maintaining good grades while participating on the team.  Here L is receiving her certificate from the head coach, and to the right is L's swim buddy B waiting for her certificate, too.

Here is L with her certificate (and to the left is her other swim buddy La). 

Then the happy surprise of the evening was that L received a varsity letter for swim!  The coach said that normally they give varsity letters to everyone who qualifies for the state finals, but this year there had been 51 of the 69 swimmers qualify for state, with 45 of them qualifying for state in individual events, which was an amazing accomplishment for relatively small teams.  However,  the coaches felt the award would lose its significance if nearly the entire team received a letter so they developed different criteria.  They decided to awarded them based on the highest cumulative point totals (practice points, meet points and meet scores). They awarded the top twenty percent (or where there was a natural break in points) of swimmers.  L (third from left) and K (second from left) were the only team members on the HHS team to receive their varsity letters, and of course, they were part of the overall top twenty percent of the Tridents to receive letters.  I was thrilled.