By: Dr. Andrew Yox, Honors Director
For NTCC Honors Students, there are three major ways in which leadership not only benefits the recipient, but the whole honors experience. Students can lead in classroom erudition. They can lead in scholarship, generally producing an essay or project that addresses major issues or problems. Finally, they can lead in collective activities that provide services for the community and/or accolades for the larger group. During her first summer in honors and first semester in an honors seminar last fall, Emma Frances earned the 2025 Dr. Charles B. Florio Award, for her leadership in all three venues.
Anonymous donors have supplied most of the $200 yearly outlays for the leadership award in Honors Northeast. The award recognizes the initiatives of Dr. Charles Florio, who served as President of NTCC for thirteen years, from 1995 to 2008. One of the attainments of his tenure was the establishment of the college’s award-winning honors program. Dr. Florio, a resident of Fort Worth in his last years, died last year.
Last summer, Mendoza became the director for the upcoming film in honors that will premiere at the Whatley Center for the Performing Arts on Friday, this 20 January, at 7 p.m. The film, Chicano Thermidor, Art and Identity in San Antonio, 1970-1995, is about the struggle of rival associations to define the Mexican American identity. It is based on research performed by NTCC’s award-winning scholar, Stephanie Hernandez. Honors Director, Dr. Andrew Yox, notes that of the “fourteen feature-length films created by Honors Northeast, and the NTCC Webb Society, none before has featured so many outdoor scenes, and featured such good outside audio. Mendoza too, along with her Unit Production Director, Hailey Randall, led a team that filmed the entire script successfully. In what is now seen as the iconic scene of the film, Mendoza had the crew and set alight by an abandoned store front in Cass County on the Friday afternoon of filmweek, with the temperature hovering around 100 degrees. Bottled waters circulated. A now fun-to-watch faceoff between two rival characters, played by Araceli Landaverde, and Alison Majors, then ensued into which all the hot tension of the moment was funneled into the animosity that that this crux of the script was calling out for.”
In her first semester as an honors student least fall, Mendoza matriculated successfully in both ends or the Biology/Texas History honors seminar. In biology, Dr. Chris McAllister needed the honors students to bring in a live captured rat or small animal, so that the group could test for commensal organisms. As it was a dry fall, the mousetraps received little activity, and the group was floundering without evidence. At this juncture, while driving to NTCC from her Titus County home one day, Mendoza espied a wounded rabbit hit by a car on the side of the road. She got out of her car, wrapped the dying rabbit in an old blanket, and gave it to Dr. McAllister. The rabbit was full of coccidia microbes, and the group had its subject.
In the Texas history seminar last fall, Mendoza wrote a very promising essay on Jovita Idar, the San Antonio educator who the U.S. Mint decided to put on a special Texas quarter, commemorating 100 years of women voting, in 2023. But is the Idar story as fully explored as one might think for one who received such an honor? For those intrigued by this question, one might attend a 13 February luncheon at the Mount Pleasant library (emailing ayox@ntcc.edu beforehand for lunch), and hear the answer, as Mendoza will be one of the four NTCC presenters. For her essay, Mendoza is NTCC’s Britt nominee for a significant award bestowed each year by the Great Plains Honors Council.
Mendoza has also functioned since last summer as NTCC’s award-winning Chapter President of Alpha Mu Chi, the unit of Phi Theta Kappa on campus. For this, Mendoza has stuffed envelopes, welcomed inductees, and led meetings. For honors professor, and director of Phi Theta Kappa, Dr. Melissa Fulgham, Mendoza’s “dependability, work ethic, and creativity make her stand out. Her brilliant smile and welcoming, affable manner help make everyone feel welcome, making her a truly exceptional chapter president.”
In her first semester at NTCC last spring, Mendoza became an Eagle Excellence Award winner, and a winner of the Bonnie Spencer essay contest. Last summer she became a STAR recipient of Phi Theta Kappa in Texas. She was the winner last spring of the first-place $400 McGraw-Hill Poster award for her study on sewing machines. She also presented in San Diego last November at the National Collegiate Honors Council, both with her poster of sewing machines, and on a panel about NTCC films.
Mendoza was homeschooled, and is the daughter of Eduardo, and Marilee Mendoza.
