Canyon View Middle honor students team up to give peers, teachers a ‘heart attack’ for Valentine’s

Written by Jeff Richards
February 14, 2018
Canyon View Middle School Honor Society students (clockwise from lower left) Harmony Carpenter, Nicole Eberhard, McCoy Hoopes, Parker Nielson, Zack Eckley and Payton Roundy make paper heart valentines for their peers, Cedar City, Utah, Feb. 13, 2018 | Photo by Jeff Richards, St. George News / Cedar City News

CEDAR CITY — Call it a Cougar heart attack. Before school starts Wednesday morning, Canyon View Middle School students will eagerly roam the halls looking for their own personalized valentines.

L-R: Canyon View Middle School Honor Society students Nicole Eberhard, Zack Eckley, Parker Nielson, Harmony Carpenter and McCoy Hoopes hang valentines in school’s main hallway, Cedar City, Utah, Feb. 13, 2018 | Photo by Jeff Richards, St. George News / Cedar City News

Within the past few weeks, members of the school’s honor society made the red, pink and white paper hearts — one for every one of the school’s 970 students — using a master list provided by the office.

Tuesday after school, the CVMS honor students went up and down the hallways and attached the hearts to the sides of the main hall using masking tape.

Canyon View Middle School Honor Society adviser Trudy Benson said the popular school tradition was started by the school’s counselors about five or six years ago and was turned over to the honor society after a couple years.

Now, dozens of students can accomplish in an hour or two what used to take a few people many days or even weeks, she said.

After sticking up the initial batch of nearly 1,000 hearts in less than an hour’s time Tuesday afternoon, honor society members Harmony Carpenter, Nicole Eberhard, McCoy Hoopes, Parker Nielson, Zack Eckley, and Payton Roundy reconvened in Benson’s classroom, where they made a few more valentines for the dozen or so new students who’d been added to the school’s rolls since January.

Canyon View Middle School students hang up paper heart valentines in the school’s main hallway, Cedar City, Utah, Feb. 13, 2018 | Photo by Jeff Richards, St. George News / Cedar City News

After that, they set out to hang up the last few student hearts, along with larger ones for each of the school’s 90-plus faculty members, including teachers, administrative staff, custodians, and lunch workers.

Benson is assisted by science teacher Jenny Roundy in advising the honor society, which has about 200 student members and requires a GPA of at least 3.7 and good citizenship grades to join.

“It’s a great tradition and it’s such a fun thing to be part of,” Benson said. “Our goal is to make sure everyone gets a valentine.”

“The kids are so excited to come in and look up and down the hallway to find their own names and their friends’ names,” Benson said. “The hearts will stay up throughout the day on Valentines Day, and at the end of the day they’re free to take theirs home.”

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Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2018, all rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jeff Richards, a native of Salt Lake City with family roots in Panguitch, lived in Moab for 20 years before joining St. George News in 2017. Jeff is a longtime journalist and secondary school teacher. He and his wife Penny are the parents of five daughters. They also have two young grandsons. Jeff and his family enjoy swimming, camping, sightseeing, reading, and taking pictures.

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @stgnews@moabjeff@stgnewssports

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