A decades-old awards program that acknowledges the achievements of South Florida highschool seniors out and in of the classroom included Monroe County college students for the primary time. And one Coral Shores pupil got here away a winner throughout awards night time on Might 14.
Often called the Silver Knight Awards, this system was shaped in 1959 by John S. Knight, previous writer of the Miami Herald and founder and editor emeritus of Knight-Ridder Newspapers. With a protracted historical past of honoring distinctive college students, this system seeks excellent seniors who excelled academically whereas demonstrating achievements in numerous fields, from group service to extracurricular actions.
Since its inception, the awards program was solely open to college students in Miami-Dade and Broward counties. That was till State Lawyer Dennis Ward referred to as Jay Hershoff, chairman of the board of trustees for Baptist Well being South Florida, a giant sponsor of the Silver Knight Awards. Via a number of cellphone calls, and a few persistence, the awards program opened as much as Monroe County college students.
“It’s such a tremendous factor to have nominees from Monroe County for the primary time in 67 years,” Hershoff mentioned.
Of the 900-plus nominees in South Florida, 12 got here from Coral Shores. A kind of, Connor Dixon, got here away a winner within the athletics class. Apart from his excellence within the classroom and on the soccer area, Dixon devoted greater than 1,000 hours to carry a Particular Olympics program to Coral Shores, which has grown to greater than 100 volunteers.
Dixon’s journey started throughout his center faculty years when he participated on a Particular Olympic crew, which pairs college students with and with out disabilities. When he reached highschool, he observed there was no Particular Olympics program. He went to work and have become the youngest coach and college director in Particular Olympics historical past — and he did all of it whereas balancing his faculty work, a part-time job and and an internship with Florida Worldwide College.
Dixon helped launch Particular Olympics soccer and soccer packages. Different sports activities have been added to this system — bringing extra college students collectively for enjoyable and competitors.
“I created a tradition at my faculty and in my group the place children with particular wants by no means needed to sit alone at lunch or by no means felt disregarded or alone all through their highschool profession,” he mentioned.
Silver Knights obtain $2,000, a statue and a medallion introduced by American Airways. The money awards are made attainable partially by the help of the John S. and James L. Knight Basis.
Different nominees from Coral Shores included Rocio Ornelas-Perez for artwork, Noah Myers for enterprise, Rachel Rusch for digital and interactive media, Ivy Hong for journalism, Brian Damage for math, Brookelyn Zlockie for music and dance, Kai Guth for science, Robert Aleman for social science, Alice Wilson for speech, Dylan Ostenson for vocational-technical and Andiris Ledesma Martinez for world languages.
Six college students from Marathon Excessive College and 6 Key West Excessive College college students had been additionally nominated for Silver Knight Awards.