By: Dr. Andrew Yox, Honors Director
Honors Northeast, the Northeast Texas Community College Honors Program, is pleased to announce its Honors Students for the 2026-2027 school year. This includes five Presidential Scholars and twelve Honors Scholars.
The NTCC Board of Trustees established Honors Northeast in the spring of 2007. Geared to attract top high school graduates and college students, the program has received generous support from both outside donors, and a team of NTCC administrators and professors. Each year, NTCC honors students have presented research at the Walter Prescott Webb Society of Texas (WPWS), the Great Plains Honors Council (GPHC) and the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC). As listed on the Wall-of-Honor Page of the NTCC honors website, in twenty years, NTCC honors students have won forty-six State of Texas Caldwell Awards, ten Boe Awards of the Great Plains Honors Council, ten Britt Poster Awards of the GPHC, and on the national level, twenty-four Leaders of Promise, twenty-three Coca Cola Awards, five Hites Awards, two Pearsons, eight Guistwhite Awards, and eleven exclusive Jack Kent Cooke scholarships. NTCC Scholars also have published thirty-one single-author essays and well as numerous other multi-author articles in scholarly journals since 2009. They have won four sets of Portia Gordon Awards for having the best student panel at the East Texas Historical Association, of any university or college group. Eleven have served in the top student post of the Great Plains Honors Council. NTCC scholars have presented their film work at twelve General Panel Sessions of the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) and are the only community-college honors program in the nation to have featured student scholarship every year since 2008 at the annual meeting.
Presidential Scholars are usually the top scholarship winners. They usually receive enough to cover tuition, books and fees, and if other scholarships are involved, most will receive more in scholarships than they will spend to matriculate. Several receive both foundation and institutional scholarships. Honors Scholars generally receive lesser amounts, but rank can be misleading. The rise to distinction among members of the Honors Scholar group can be both recent and rapid. As the Honors Committee has limited numbers of Presidential Scholarships to award, the timing of a student’s application makes a difference. But all scholars participate in NTCC Honors activities and seminars. The NTCC Honors Committee selects students based on academic performance, a personal essay and letters of recommendation. The program now averages over ten student trips a year. Since its beginning, community benefactors have financed free culture/reward trips in the spring and fall, for the whole group, amenities, and special award opportunities.
“Our student body at NTCC is diverse, and the range of talents, impressive,” notes Dr. Andrew Yox, Honors Director. “The seventeen scholars of Honors Northeast are not necessarily the smartest students, or the fastest learners at the college. But they are the creative vanguard of the college--publishing essays, dominating all college-wide poetry and poster contests, featuring their own feature-length films, appearing on the radio, and making honors and professional presentations each year. Because of the support they receive from donors, faculty and administration, honors has its own incentivization corridor of special awards. Honors students at NTCC are extensively mentored, and tested before regional scholarly competitions. Our honors students are thus very competitive on the national level in terms of awards and scholarships.”
NTCC has a new Honors Coordinator this year, Cade Bennett, an alumnus of the program. He has worked extensively with this year’s student cohort, and he notes: “It is a great pleasure getting to see this remarkable group of students not just create a lucrative college experience for themselves through their ambition and social prowess but also collaborate heavily with the surrounding community. From studying exhibitions at local museums and helping work cultural music events, Honors students have built a reputation of dependability and maturity. They are always quick to get invited to social networking opportunities, in big part because they are a joyous and inspiring group to be around."
Aside from receiving a scholarship to attend NTCC, Honors and Presidential Scholars enroll in three, six-to-seven-hour seminars during their two-year stay at NTCC. All honors students participate in the fall Northeast Texas Poetry contest, the spring McGraw Hill Poster contest, and submit abstracts, and papers for major state, regional and national presentations, awards and publications.
The list of 2026-27 NTCC Scholars are as follows:
Presidential Scholars
José Fuentes:
Fuentes is the Dr. Jerry Wesson Scholar of Honors Northeast, and international president of the largest honorary society in higher education in North America, Phi Theta Kappa. He was the winner of a $400 first-place Caldwell Award in the university division last spring for his essay on the immigration of Mexican Americans to north Texas. Fuentes has also been active in biological research. He presented his research at the April 2026 annual meeting of the Southwestern Association of Parasitologists meeting in Kingston, Oklahoma, and the April 2026 meeting of the Southwestern Association of Naturalists in Tyler, Texas. He is on his way to becoming an author on North Texas Mexican immigration in Touchstone, the collegiate journal of the Texas State Historical Association, and a coauthor of several scientific publications that will describe new species of coccidian parasites from reptiles as well as myxosporeans from fish in refereed parasitological journals. He is the second of two Fuentes siblings to have enrolled in honors here. Last year, he assumed the leading role as “Mel Casas” in our film about Hispanic art associations in San Antonio. He is a graduate of Mount Pleasant High School.
Jordan Krumrie:
Krumrie is a 2026 graduate of Mount Pleasant High School. She was a member of the student council, and an officer of HOSA (Health Occupations Students of America). She is fluent in German, as her family often visits Germany. Majoring in Biology, she is pursuing an independent research course this Fall semester, and her group has already encountered some unnamed fish parasites which may lead to publications.
Jaydy Martinez:
Martinez was a top 2026 graduate of Mount Pleasant High School. She was the president of HOSA, a member of the National Honor Society, the National Technical Honor Society and the Student Council. She is an award-winning artist, and a recipient of an EKG certificate. She will be presenting her research on traditional Mexican healing techniques at the fall meeting of the Walter Prescott Webb Society in Navasota, Texas. Martinez is the James and Elizabeth Whatley Scholar of NTCC, the top selection of the Honors Committee in the 2026 search.
Adam Richards:
Adam Richards is the 2026-27 Bill Glass Scholar of Honors Northeast and the Student Representative of the Great Plains Honors Council (GPHC). The GPHC is an association of 80 honors entities, colleges and programs, among universities and colleges in six states, from Nebraska to Texas. His life story includes a time of homelessness in Las Vegas, lost high school years, and a successful immigration and new start in Northeast Texas. For his work with the French Empire architecture in Texas, he won a Second-Place, $300 State of Texas Caldwell Award in the university division last spring in Irving, and recently, he won a $200 Portia Gordon of the East Texas Historical Association. Last year, he was the $400 winner of the Northeast Texas Poetry Contest with his work, “Northeastern Pine Curtains,” and the winner of the $200 Chitsey Award for the student in honors who most exceeded expectations. Last summer he played the part of Clemente Idar in our film, the brother of Jovita, and he won Stevenson Award for acting. He was a 2025 graduate of Daingerfield High School.
Johnathan Ventura:
Ventura is the sixth Russell-Mowery Scholar of Honors Northeast. This designation is reserved for students who have had a regional cultural influence. Ventura was the associate producer of our Caldwell-Award winning 2025 film, Chicano Thermidor, and served as the lead cinematographer last summer for our 2026 film on Jovita Idar. He placed second in the 2025 Northeast Texas Poetry Contest, winning $300, and third in the 2026 contest, winning $200. He has presented segments of our films in Georgetown, Irving, Nacogdoches, Texarkana, Kansas City, and the Mount Pleasant Library. He won a $200 Portia Gordon Award for chairing our student panel at the East Texas Historical Association, and he will chair our panel at the National Collegiate Honors Council in New Orleans this November. He was the winner of the 2026 spring Eckman Award for having the highest GPA in the ChemPsych Honors Seminar. Ventura was a graduate of Mount Pleasant High School, but he currently lives in Pittsburg.
Honors Scholars
Leah Aniciete:
Aniciete is currently the top-ranked student in the senior class at Chapel Hill High School. She serves as president of Chapel Hill’s National Honor Society chapter, vice president of Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) and parliamentarian for the regional FBLA. She placed tenth in the nation in FBLA, in the category of health-care administration. In the past four years at Chapel Hill, she has served as a class officer. She is the first high school student in the history of Honors Northeast to be a first-year front-runner in conceptualization, and in the promise of her Texas history research.
Sky Blue Bass
Bass is the NTCC president of Alpha Mu Chi, our college’s chapter of Phi Theta Kappa, and she has served on NTCC Student Government. She participated in our research initiative to Laredo last summer, and played the role of Jovita Idar’s mother, who also was named, Jovita, in our film. She is the ninth winner of the $200 Dr. Charles Florio Award for Leadership in honors. At the start of the fall semester, Bass won the Northeast Texas Image Contest with her photograph of a purplish afterglow in Franklin County during a lightning storm. Almost like some photographic El Greco, she snapped the picture just as lightning lit up the sky. Her fourth-place poem, “Breath, Let’s escape,” won $100 and appeared as a calligram, discussing what it was shaped like—a dragon.
Stephany Fuentes:
Fuentes graduated from Harts Bluff early college High School with honors. She won a 2025 Eagle Award at NTCC for her work in biology, and became vice president of Alpha Mu Chi. She came in second place and won $300 at the 2026 Northeast Texas Poetry contest for her poem, “The Mockingbird’s Advice.” She was the winner of the $1,500 Walter B. Cooper Scholarship of Texas, an exclusive award granted by Phi Theta Kappa. Fuentes has served as a Region 8 Science Fair judge and regularly gives her time as a volunteer with Heart-to-Heart Hospice.
Alexander Garcia:
Garcia is a graduate of Hallsville High School, east of Longview. He was the only non-honors student to compete in NTCC’s end-of-the-year poster contest in May of 2026. His topic was Aztec weaponry. He has a strong interest in the design of personalized avatars, and has maintained a correspondence with the same online friends in Florida, Puerto Rico and Germany for the last five years, exercising this interest. In the honors film, he played the role last summer of Bartolo Juarez, the San Antonio plumber who married Jovita Idar.
Jack Heavner:
Heavner is a 2026 graduate of Chapel Hill High School. He was in speech and debate along with FBLA. In debate he went to state three years in a row with placements in two of those years. In his sophomore year he placed third in state at FBLA and went to nationals. Last summer he participated in the Laredo research field trip initiative, and in the film played the role of Bud Weaver, a Texas Ranger from Camp County. For the humor and singing that Heavner contributed to this part, he won a second place $100 Stevenson Award for acting.
Jasmine Landaverde:
Jasmine Landaverde is the fifth Dr. and Mrs. Bradley Witt Scholar of Honors Northeast to present at the National Collegiate Honors Council in as many years. She was the recent winner of a $200 Portia Gordon Award in Nacogdoches for her original essay about the Hispanic Paradox, on why Hispanics live longer than Anglos. She has been perhaps the most effective interviewer in the history of Honors Northeast, eliciting long testimonies and personal asides that were invaluable to her thesis about the differing ethnic mentalities. She is the third Landaverde of three siblings to enroll in Honors Northeast. In our 2025 film on Hispanic associations in San Antonio, Landaverde played the role of Carmen Garza, a member of the Chicano art association, Con Safo. She is a 2025 graduate of Mount Pleasant High School.
Drew Mays:
Mays graduated from Chapel Hill High School in the spring of 2026. He has been the leader and manager of a rock band. He sings, plays the guitar, organ, and drums. Last summer he participated in the honors research trip to Laredo. In the film, he played the part of Manuel Garcia Vigil, who wrote for the Idar family newspaper in Laredo, and later became a governor of Oaxaca.
Miah Melendez:
Melendez is a 2026 graduate of Mount Pleasant High School. She was a member of the high school choir, and the National Honor Society. The teacher who recommended her stated that Melendez does very well keeping up with homework and communicating with teachers. She is currently engaged in research about the power plants of Texas and hopes to become an engineer.
Silas Mendoza:
Mendoza was homeschooled. He is an avid guitarist and has an interest in film editing. He is the fourth Mendoza sibling to be a part of Honors Northeast. His sister, Emma, did the award-winning research that led to the current film project on Jovita Idar. Mendoza helped ensure the viability of this fifteenth film project of honors at NTCC by recruiting two actresses, a number of props, and then playing the role of Jovita’s brother, Eduardo. He is now serving as associate producer of the film effort. He has edited two trailers and is currently embroidering the entire feature-length film. He is vice-president of the Honors Student Council, and along with Sabrina Ortero-Svirska (below), has maintained the most active honors group—in addition to participation in official honors events, in our history.
Sabrina Otero-Svirska:
Sabrina Otero-Svirska is a 2026 graduate of Mount Pleasant High School. She was active and successful on the regional level in debate and in the contests of FBLA. She won $400 and first place in the Northeast Texas Poetry Contest of 2026. The publicity release on that event noted that: “Otero-Svirska, fluent in both Russian and Spanish, also exuded a fluency in evoking scenes by the lilt in her voice. Her demonstrative, emotional reading vivified the images in her poem in a way that few students have matched over the years.” Otero-Svirska also had the star role last summer in the Jovita Idar film of Honors Northeast. Though she was in over 80 percent of the scenes, film leaders found her the most consistently best actor in the film, and for this she won another first-place prize, the $200 Stevenson Award for Acting. As the “Jovita Idar” of the 2026 film, she will speak on her film experience both at the upcoming meeting of the Walter Prescott Webb Society in Navasota, and in New Orleans at the NCHC. She is also the president of the honors student council. During her tenure the group has earned over $1,000, which is a first in the history of honors. She is the daughter of our NTCC Spanish professor, Dr. Maryna Svirska-Otero, and Norberto Otero of Mount Pleasant.
Manuel Ramirez:
Ramirez is the Sid Greer Scholar of Honors Northeast, the recipient of a special ongoing scholarship of Texas Heritage National Bank. In Irving, Texas in March of 2026, he received a Caldwell Award for his work on the rise of a “humanophobic environment” in Texas. He has presented this controversial work in Texarkana, and at NTCC. He was waitlisted in his effort to present at the National Collegiate Honors Council and finally admitted. But he was deleted from the program when the NCHC wanted to bill a higher registration cost, and as the seats for the trip were already filled. He is secretary of the honors student council.
Grace Zittel:
Zittel is a 2026 graduate of Mount Pleasant High School who sang in the choir. She is now a theatre major who played the important role of the Mexican feminist, Leonor Magnón in our last-summer film project on Jovita Idar.