Students were selected for this honor based on scholarship, character, leadership and service.

Greg Thomas, Humboldt Athletic Director and football coach, spoke at the event. Thomas is the younger brother of the Late Ed Thomas, former Aplington-Parkersburg football coach, who was killed by a former football player in 2009.

“My brother encouraged me to always take the opportunity to speak in public, so I would do the same for you young people for two reasons,” said Thomas. “Number one: someone thinks that you have something of value to share with other people and the other thing that speaking in public does is it really forces you to think about what you truly believe in.”

During his speech, Thomas congratulated the inductees.

—Submitted photo Pictured above are the current members of the Webster City National Honor Society chapter. Front row: Courtney Lampman, Rihanna Wood, Gianna Gourley, Jayden Mathis, Jessica Carlson; Second Row: MaKenna Neuroth, Carlyn O’Hearn, Kali Dawson, Marie Bertran, Josie Asklund, Madalyn Casady; Third Row: Shaylor Garvey, Zach Hassebrock, Kyle Porter, James Van Diest, Bryan Ferrell; Fourth Row: Brandon Peck, Luke Bergeson, Ty Eklund, Mason Claude, Drew Fielder, Janson Bergman. Not pictured are Zach Dodge and Jake Nilles.

“I want to congratulate this year’s inductees into the National Honor Society. As you just heard, there’s a lot of things that go into your selection to this group,” Thomas said. “You’ve achieved this position of honor based on hard work, making good decisions in your personal life and in your high school life, being a high-character person, demonstrating leadership abilities, being a consistent performer in the classroom, and generally being a young person who has helped make Webster City High School a better place to be.”

Thomas encouraged students to think about and thank the people in their lives that made a difference and had a positive affect on the person they are and aspire to be.

As Thomas is a football coach, he congratulated the Lynx football team along with coach Bob Howard on their runner-up title this year.

Giving your all and using every gift you possess was stressed by Thomas.

“I really believe that it’s our responsibility to use the God-given abilities that we’ve been blessed with to help others and to make the world around us a better place,” said Thomas.

—Daily Freeman-Journal photo by Adri Sietstra BELOW: Humboldt Athletic Director and football coach Greg Thomas spoke at the 2017 Webster City High School National Honor Society Induction Sunday afternoon at Prem Sahai Auditorium. Thomas is the younger brother of the Late Ed Thomas, former Aplington-Parkersburg High School football coach.

Thomas walked the crowd through the day he learned his brother had been shot.

A former player of Ed Thomas’ walked into the weight room on June 24, 2009 and shot him seven times.

Thomas recalled over 5,000 paying their respects for the football legend and how the community came together to support each other and the family.

Thomas credited Ed’s character, moreso than his extensive list of football accolades, as to why he was so loved throughout the community.

“Ed impacted thousands of people, one person at a time,” said Thomas. “He genuinely took a personal interest and cared about other people, and he led with what we call a servant mentality, which is what the National Honor Society is all about.”

According to Greg, Ed used to always say that life is five percent what happens to us and 95 percent how we respond to that.

“Young people, you are going to have things happen to you that you don’t deserve and there’s going to be some good and some bad,” said Thomas. “How you respond to those adversities or those successes will reveal your true character.”

Thomas encouraged students to move forward and use negative experiences to better themselves and achieve positive things.

“My hope for each one of you young people is that your life becomes less about you and more about everyone around you,” said Thomas. “If we all had that goal in our lives, think about the impact that would have on our families, our communities, our teams, our schools, workplace, state, community and world.”