From Trustee Awards to ‘who’s who’, there are several award ceremonies on campus that celebrate students that have distinguished themselves academically.

A different award ceremony has been added this year, the Senior Honor night awards. Senior Honor night was created to be a time to honor any student not only based on academic standings, but rather on their impact on Bowie with their attitude, integrity, and good deeds.

“The purpose of this event is to acknowledge and celebrate the diverse talents, leadership, and achievements of the Senior Class of 2019,” social studies teacher Kaylin Brett said.  “These seniors have left a positive mark on Bowie over the past four years, and we want to give them a proper send off.”

There are two main awards that are given to the students invited, the pride in performance award, which was awarded to any senior. The second award is called the excellence award and it was given to the students who were nominated by each department at Bowie.

“Teachers and staff consistently get words of appreciation and thank you letters from our kids, but the teachers often do not have the opportunity to thank them,”  Brett said.

Along with these awards, the staff awards the students who; completed NHS, finished in the top 10%, were awarded the ‘who’s who’ award, received national merit awards, and also UIL scholar graduates.

Brett wanted to start this award ceremony to recognize everyone, not only those with academic accomplishments.

“Tonight is the staff’s chance to say thank you to this wonderful group of students sitting in front of us,” Brett said.

The students who received these awards were not alerted of the awards they were receiving and were only given an invitation to the event.

“It was exciting not to know exactly what I was getting, it made me look forward to the ceremony to see the award I was given,” senior Olivia Hanna said.  “It made me feel like I had made a difference at this school.”

Brett obtained permission to start this new awards program because she ran a similar program at a previous school.

“I ran this event at my former school in Houston, Texas. After coming to Bowie, I felt that there needed to be a bigger celebration and send off for the senior class,” Brett said.  “I wanted to specifically create this event to be more inclusive of other talents.”

The event made students feel appreciated even if they haven’t excelled in academics, but rather other areas.

“I was given the award by Mr. Lauer and it meant so much to me because he was my freshman year world geography teacher and still to this day he is my favorite teacher I’ve ever had in high school,” senior Haley Ohlen said. “I think this ceremony should continue for the future years of students because it felt very nice to be embraced by teachers and staff at Bowie after four years of hard work”

This inclusive award ceremony will continue for the following classes and recognize as many students as possible.

“This event allows the entire staff to award seniors allowing it to be more inclusive and representative of the entire class,” Brett said.”It is based on leadership, pride and character.”