The Japanese National Honor Society was founded in spring 2025 by the students in AP Japanese, Japanese 5 and Bond Sensei. This fall it has expanded to a group of 15 students and continues to grow in popularity. Currently McCallum has French, Spanish and English National Honor Societies with Japanese joining as the latest addition and one of the first Asian heritage clubs to exist at McCallum.
Bond Sensei is a key part of the JNHS chapter and made this unofficial national honors society official.
At the end of the second semester last school year, students, with the help of Bond Sensei, created the JNHS program at McCallum. Similar to other NHS groups at McCallum, to become a member of the JNHS you must take Japanese 1 and 2 and maintain a 3.5 GPA in both. Students must also maintain a 3.0 GPA overall in their other classes, as well as complete eight hours of volunteer credits over the course of the year. The JNHS standards are the same as the other NHS groups at McCallum.
Senior Evan Gravois has been a member since the beginning, but they hadn’t originally meant to join.
“I originally just did it to be with my friends,” Gravois said. “But I love the teacher, and I am really interested in the language.”
Having taken Japanese in middle school the language just stuck with them, and JNHS helps them to continue learning about the Japanese community.
“When we volunteer, we mostly do street and neighborhood clean up in the nearby communities,” Gravios said. “We also participate in activities directed through the Austin Japan Community.”
To help contribute to the Japanese culture in Austin, the JNHS group volunteers with Austin Japan Community. They learn more about Austin’s sister city, Oita, which is rich in Japanese culture, history and unique landmarks. The sisterhood was founded in 1990 to cultivate friendship, goodwill and an understanding between the two cities. This sister relationship promoted education, business, government and mostly exchanges in culture.
Senior Ashton Ward has also been a member since it was founded. They say they enjoy learning about Japanese culture and spending their time learning about the Japanese lifestyle.
“I have always wanted to visit Japan,” Ward said. “I love learning about Japanese culture and working with people who know more than I do.”
JNHS has also paired with the company Asahi Imports, an exclusive Japanese market located on Burnet Road.
As the Japanese community in Austin is not that big and there are very few JNHS’s, the community is very linked.
“They donated a lot of snacks and sweets to us last year for our snack sale that we were able to sell to Mac students to raise our chapter funds,” Ward said.
Asahi imports funded JNHS’s snack sale, allowing them to be able to fund the chapter for the first two years, as every chapter must pay fees per year to continue the chapter.
“The Japanese community is not that big,” said Ward. “There is the Asian market within Ranch 99 and other Japanese companies, but there are not many other Japanese based companies throughout Austin.
In 2023, the Japanese students were able to compete in the North Texas Japan bowl. Teams compete in a trivia contest centered around Japan, hosted by the Japan America Society. They compete in subjects consisting of, language, heritage, art, music, history, economics and literature. In 2023 they were able to compete and the goal is to go back to the competition again this year as a team and hopefully advance from the regional level to the national finals.
The Japanese National Honor Society has expanded over the past year and is deepening the understanding of Japanese culture and the language throughout McCallum. Their goal is to continue enriching the Japanese community in Austin and grow the JNHS chapter at McCallum.
