Credit to File Photo

FHN seniors and faculty gather in the learning commons for a past secret scholar breakfast in April.

Students around FHN may have seen mysterious gifts being delivered to students and teachers in their classes throughout the year. The recipients of these gifts are part of a group in the senior National Honor Society called Secret Scholars. 

“The seniors in the National Honors Society get to exchange notes and gifts with a teacher,” Kimberly Coil, the sponsor for senior NHS, said. “It is only for the seniors, so they look forward to it.”

There are multiple days during the year that these gift exchanges happen, including Halloween, Thanksgiving, the winter holiday, Valentine’s Day and the participant’s birthday. These presents are brought in and placed on a special cart in Coil’s room, where they are taken and delivered to the recipient of the gift. This ensures that the teacher doesn’t know what student they have until the final exchange in April.

“When I was in high school it would have been so much fun to get a gift from a teacher and we never had anything like that,” Mayghen Mugele, a science teacher at FHN, said. “I like to go all out sometimes and be a little extra with it, but it’s something that I can do so I don’t mind doing it.”

In order to keep the names of the students a secret, they adopt code names to put on their gifts which is what their teacher or staff member will know them by. These can be anything from something funny or random, like ‘post-it note’ or ‘emergency kit’, to something that relates to a fun fact about themselves. 

“I had my very first secret scholar in class, but I didn’t know who she was because she used the name Miss America,” Coil said. “She used to do pageants and didn’t know that about her. I was hooked on doing secret scholars pretty much every year after that.”

Secret Scholars is a way for members to get NHS points, but it is also a longstanding tradition at FHN. It provides an opportunity for staff members and students, who may have never met before, to get to know each other in a fun way before the student graduates. 

“I’ve had so much fun with it,” Mugele said. “I like how it’s so secretive. It reminds me to take every day for what it’s worth and sometimes a little gift here and there helps.”