By: Maansi Maskai, Theodore Do,
Roughly 400 MHS seniors were scheduled to be honored for their high school accomplishments at Senior Awards Night held on May 23rd, according to College and Career Counselor Marissa Canez. Additionally, seniors were recognized during the Athletic Awards Night and the Latino Awards, both of which were also held during May, she said.
The class of 2018 was one of the largest groups of seniors awarded for scholarships and achievements, according to Principal Francis Rojas. Many seniors were recognized for their success in academics and service, he said.
During Senior Awards Night, seniors received a maroon cord for completing 150 hours of community service and a gold cord for having a 10th-12th unweighted academic GPA of 3.25 or weighted GPA of 3.5, Canez said. 45 students received a scholarship of some sort either through the school they chose to attend or through MHS, she added.
Some of the largest scholarships awarded on the night were given to Seniors Brianna Williams and Augie De Luna, according to Canez. Williams received the $20,000 Minnis Scholarship, strictly given to only MHS Students, while De Luna received a $10,000 Minnis Scholarship and $500 scholarship from the Milpitas Teachers Association.
“I was ecstatic when I found out I won the scholarships,” Williams said in an interview over email. “I plan to use part of the scholarships to help pay for tuition as well as some of it to help pay for expenses college requires.”
During the Athletic Awards Night, roughly 330 athletes from all classes – freshmen through seniors – were recognized for different awards, according to Athletic Sports Director Jeff Lamb. These awards included the Athlete of the Year awards, the Bill BeBout Award, the Ned McIver Scholar Athlete Award, Jim Ferguson Award, Team Sportsmanship Award, and the Leo B. Murphy Award, he said.
The main and most prestigious award, the Leo B. Murphy Award, was given to the top senior athletes of each gender who had accumulated the most points for everything they had done throughout their four years of high school, Lamb said. The recipients of the award this year were Tariq Bracy and Brooke Indihar-Loo. Athletes have to put in a lot of extra time, two to three hours a day for five to six days a week, so the awards are to recognize their achievements, he explained.
“We attempt to make sure that we recognize good athletes, but we also stress to strive that we have student athletes, since we’re educationally based athletics, going to school and doing well in school also is part of it,” Lamb said. “We really strive that we, hopefully, through athletics, are helping create better adults, because of what we expect of them.”