Senior Katie Green selected as National Finalist for National Honor Society Scholarship

----
In the eyes of high school gifted teacher Ms. Jodi Blasi, Woodland Hills student Katie Green is a change maker. The high school senior is a member of the district’s Climate Action Team and Green Team. Normally reserved and quiet, Green’s voice gets loudest when she advocates for change to positively impact the environment.

It’s one reason why Green has been selected as one of 25 National Finalists for the National Honor Society Scholarship. As a finalist, Green will receive a scholarship for $5,625. She and Ms. Blasi, who serves as the advisor for the Woodland Hills National Honor Society, will attend a week-long celebration and leadership event in Washington, D.C. in April. At that gathering, four of the finalists will be selected as pillar award winners and receive an additional $5,000, while one finalist will be the national winner and receive a total scholarship award of $25,000.

After a couple of months of not hearing anything following her submission, she opened her email one day to a surprise.

“They’re like, you’re a finalist! There’s 25 of you out of 600 (semifinalists),” Green recalled. “I was like, ‘Oh, my goodness, I totally forgot about that!”

Like a number of high school seniors, Green has been searching for scholarships to help defray the cost of college. The one through the National Honor Society made sense to her.

“But also I really have enjoyed being part of the NHS,” she said. “It's one of my favorite parts of being here, one of my favorite extracurriculars. So that was definitely something I was interested in applying for.”

As an NHS member, she helped plan the induction ceremony for the incoming members this year. She’s also participated in blood drives, door decorating and other community service projects. Outside of the NHS and Climate Action Team, Green participates in mock trial, competes in the science Olympiad and gifted competitions, serves as a member of the stage crew for theater productions, and works as a library intern.

“After COVID and just sort of sitting in my room and everything being shut down, it was really nice to get back and have things to do where I get to see people,” she said. And I’m kind of interested in a lot of different things. I like the environment. I like service so I enjoy doing NHS. It's just a lot of different things that appealed to me.”

Green will be attending the University of Pittsburgh, where she was accepted into the Honors College. Her mom works for Pitt, so she’s familiar with the campus, and she’s excited about the variety the local school offers.

“It's familiar and it's big and has a lot of different clubs that are weird. They have a juggling club, they have like a stage fighting club,” she said with a laugh. “And they have a lot of different majors. I haven't decided on the major yet. So that's kind of nice that I get to choose as I go along.”

More than likely, she’ll also find some clubs and activities to join, including a few where she can have her voice be heard.

“Katie always downplays her abilities. She’s extremely humble,” Ms. Blasi said. “But it’s OK to congratulate yourself sometimes, because the rest of us are very proud of her.”