Lettering is not only for athletes but also for the scholarly. There are multiple ways to letter at school, one of them being academically.

This award recognizes students who have a commitment to community service, accept personal ownership for their educational plan and keep high academic achievement. It is meant to encourage students to work hard and give their best effort in school as well as in the community.

“It is cool to be recognized for something that we do every day instead of only for sports,” said sophomore Alexis Theoharidis.

Students earn this award by: being at least a sophomore, junior or senior, having at least a 3.5 GPA from the two qualifying semesters with no grade lower than a B, being a full-time student, having 95 percent attendance for the qualification period and completing a minimum of 10 community service hours.

“The other three sister high schools recognized academics through a lettering system, so when they opened Staley they decided that because SOAR is our mission values they wanted to include the service, ownership and attendance piece in,” said counselor Carol Toney.

Those who earn this honor receive a chenille S, if they had not lettered before, a Lamp of Knowledge and a gold bar. For every year that the qualifications are met after the first, the students will get a gold bar.

“It wasn’t a specific goal of mine, but I am super happy I did it by just trying my best and getting the hours I need to graduate,” said sophomore Kayla Pospisil.

There was a bigger group of academic letter winners this year due to more sophomores turning in community service hours, according to Toney. This year a total of 147 sophomores and juniors as well as 77 seniors earned their academic letter.