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By: Dr. Andrew Yox, Honors Director 

Vanessajane Bayna, the Texas Heritage National Bank Scholar of NTCC, has just won the student election of the Great Plains Honors Council (GPHC).  In a general email to the institutional members on 30 October, GPHC secretary Ebonie Hill of Oklahoma State communicated the results.  Bayna defeated an upperclassman from the Redwine Honors Program of Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls for the top honor.  She will be the one student from eighty honors programs and colleges, from Nebraska to Texas, to join the other professorial members of the GPHC Executive Council. 

Bayna attended her first plenary meeting of the GPHC on 1 November in Kansas City, and received strong round of applause for her success. 

“Bayna has an amazing résumé,” notes Dr. Andrew Yox, NTCC honors director.  In a far-flung e-election involving honors professors and deans, a terse rendition of major scholarly attainments matters a lot. Bayna’s essay on big oil and Texas

 politics has thus far won both a State of Texas Caldwell Award, and a Portia Gordon Award of the East Texas Historical Association.  Her scholarly work on this topic formed the foundation for the current honors film on this subject, which was recently featured in Kansas City.  She has also presented this work at the meetings of the Walter Prescott Webb Society, the Great Plains Honors Council, and the National Collegiate Honors Council. In addition to the scholarly attainments, Bayna has excelled in NTCC’s most challenging STEM classes.  She won a $100 Eckman Award last spring, excelling in the first honors chemistry seminar class offered at NTCC. 

“Bayna has an amazing bilateral skill set,” notes NTCC honors director, Dr. Andrew Yox.  She has excelled in Physics and Chemistry.  She also is a brilliant conceptualizer and writer.  She is quiet, cheerful, polite, and intensely occupied with her studies.”

The Great Plains Honors Council has operated since 1975.  Each year since 2008, NTCC scholars have presented at its annual spring conference.  Last year at Oklahoma State, Bayna gained her first live exposure to GPHC members by presenting her successful work on “the soporific state,” the story of how the oil industry attached itself to the dreams of both liberals and conservatives to attain a hegemonial role in Texas politics.

Vanessajane is the daughter of Lardean and Venus Bayna of Titus County.  The family traces its lineage to the Philippines where her grandfather joined with the American army in fighting the Japanese in World War II.  Bayna was a top 2023 graduate of Mount Pleasant High School.  Last summer she won $1,000 while being named the Dr. Yolando Romero Scholar of Phi Theta Kappa in Texas.