On Jan. 16, Spanish teacher and Spanish Honor Society o-sponsor Pamela Benitez won the Park-Sihouky award for her exemplary work with the organization. 

The Park-Sihouky award is given to one sponsor of a Sociedad Honoraria Hispánica (SHH) chapter who has served as a sponsor for one to three years. The winner gets a trip to the annual American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP) conference in Salamanca, Spain.

Benitez is proud of being a sponsor of the school’s chapter and is grateful for the service projects she gets to work on. Just this December, the chapter recently raised over $1000 for Proyecto Pulsera, an organization that helps support fair-trade artists by selling bracelets. 

“I think it’s [SHH] such an important thing. And just to be able to, you know, work with, you know, high achieving students who’ve been studying Spanish,” she said. “And so that’s their passion so they can be with other students that share that passion, and just to encourage them to continue to study Spanish, helping them learn more about the culture, as well as doing different service projects as well that are related to the Latino community.”

The Park-Silhouky award is in honor of Judy Park and Ursula Sihocky. Park formerly taught Spanish and sponsored the Spanish Honor Society at Niles North for almost 30 years until she retired in 2002, according to Benitez. 

“This makes the award even more meaningful to me because I had taught with Judy and I learned so much from her, especially when I was first starting out as a new teacher,” Benitez said.

To support Niles North’s Spanish Honor Society, check out their movie night, La Noche De Película, on Feb. 10.