Hickman offers several opportunities for students to win awards from the Super Kewp Award to Senior Awards Night. These awards take a lot of work from counselors behind the scenes to organize, but are worth it for the way they make students feel.
Robin Hogan, a counselor at Hickman, works very closely with the planning of the Super Kewp awards and said planning an awards ceremony takes more work than expected.
“It [takes] a lot of work. A lot of behind-the-scenes stuff that the kids don’t know, [which] turns into an awards night…It takes a lot of people and a lot of pre-planning,” Hogan said. “You have to involve the custodians, the PTSA, the secretaries, and you’re always coordinating with the activities director and the maintenance crew…It really is a team effort.”
Winning an award didn’t solely come with a name on a certificate and recognition, but it could help students with low self-esteem gain confidence.
“For those students who are already intrinsically motivated, don’t do it for the award; they do it for themselves, [and] they would excel without the award piece. Everybody benefits from being recognized for hard work,” Hogan said. “[But for] those kids that school isn’t so easy…that award means a lot. It means a lot to those kids who might not ever get recognized, ever. They fall under the radar for a million reasons, so those are the ones that might benefit in terms of self-esteem and feeling valued, just moving forward.”
The Super Kewp and other Hickman awards weren’t only about grades but, more times than not, depend on a student’s growth, perseverance, and their character.
“It might be a kid that started off the year with a rotten attitude that has developed a better attitude over time, or somebody who’s… got a lot going on outside of school but they’ve persevered here,” Hogan said.
Sophomore Ivy Blakey did not know about the Super Kewp Award before she got it.
“I didn’t realize until I got the form…and I didn’t know what it was, but it was so cool to receive that,” Ivy said.
Junior Ilia Dimov, however, knew exactly what the Super Kewp award was because his mom attended Hickman.
“My mom had talked about it, but I didn’t think that I was gonna get it,” Ilia said.
Ilia’s mom never got a Super Kewp, so she was “pretty proud” when her son got the award. Ivy was also proud of getting the award.
“I felt like I was getting recognition for the hard work that I put in. It’s nice to get that sort of thing,” Ivy said.
Freshman Elliot Gaines felt similarly.
“I was kind of proud, I guess I would say excited. I didn’t really know what it was before, but now [that] I [know] what it [is], it’s kind of cool to get it,” Elliott said.
Getting the award affected the way Ivy is going to go about the rest of this year and next year.
“It probably…made me want to work even harder, to try and be a good student,” Ivy said.
Elliott, however, didn’t think the award was going to change the way he acted in class.
“I’m just going to keep doing the same thing…Just try to be nice…I usually try to ask questions, and then…pay attention and do my work, and then I do good,” Elliott said.
Ivy feels that receiving an award helped her come out of her shell.
“It made me feel…more friendly…because I’m traditionally a really shy person, so getting that award made me feel like I could interact with teachers more and just be a little bit more myself,” Ivy said.
Paige Reed, also a counselor, worked to plan a different awards ceremony at Hickman: the Senior Awards Night. This is a night to award seniors and is centered around awards and scholarships presented by the community.
“Seniors have won all sorts of things…They’ve gotten scholarships to all sorts of colleges and universities. This [awards ceremony] is just for local organizations,” Reed said.
When thinking about senior awards, winning the Valedictorian might come to mind first, however the Senior Awards Night highlights other student achivements at Hickman.
“Don’t discount yourself, because some people want to give the average kid an award because they do just as much work as the high-high [grade] kids do,” Reed said.
