39th Golden Herald awards honor high-achieving, Manatee County students

BRADENTON -- As emcees listed the accolades for each Golden Herald awards winner Thursday night, they prolonged the suspense by avoiding gender-specific pronouns or mentioning winning student names.

There comes a moment, however, when realization dawns on the winner. It's the moment when a student in the audience realizes the judge is talking about them and they've won the award.

For Southeast High School senior Caleb Francois, the moment happened when the announcer began describing his participation in Future Business Leaders of America.

For fellow Southeast student Naomi Gail Rafi, it was when the emcee mentioned work with children in the Philippines.

For Manatee High School student Chloe Hollands, the

moment came when the announcer mentioned Youth for Christ.

"It's very humbling," Hollands said after the ceremony. "I can't wait to continue being involved in the community throughout the rest of my life."

The annual Golden Herald awards, now in its 39th year, honors the best and the brightest of Manatee County in categories ranging from art to vocational. Each school in the county, including private schools and charters, are eligible to nominate students. Students fill out an application and undergo an interview process before winners are chosen.

Each of 15 Herald award winners received a plaque, medal and $1,500 to help pay for college. Honorable-mention students were awarded $300 toward college costs.

In the last 39 years, almost 5,000 students have been honored, including 151 more Thursday.

"The competition was daunting, with the judges having to weigh the depth of quality and caring among all of those student who participated," Bradenton Herald Executive Editor Joan Krauter said in an introduction.

Examples of quality and caring include:

Breaking a world record. Saint Stephen's Episcopal School student Zack Gromko built a robot that solved a Rubik's Cube in less than 3 seconds.

Braden River High School student Amy Xie led a foreign language teacher, whose primary language is Chinese, through her first year in a public school .

Braden River High School student Brianna Lutzi overcame juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and an eating disorder.

For at least the fourth year in a row, Southeast High School students took home the most first-place finishes in the Bradenton Herald Golden Herald awards ceremony.

Of the 15 first-place awards given, Southeast students won four categories -- art, business, math and science -- more than any other school. It's a sign of the academic community created at Southeast, Assistant Principal George Schrier said.

"It's really a tribute to the teachers, the kids and their parents," he said. "It's really a privilege to work with them."

Three Braden River High students were awarded first-place finishes. Lakewood Ranch High School had two first-place finishes.

Manatee, Palmetto, Saint Stephen's, Bradenton Christian, Bayshore and State College of Florida Collegiate School all had at least one student earn an award.

At the end of the ceremony, two student names were drawn out of a hat and winners given an additional $1,000 scholarship in memory of former Bradenton Herald employee Brad Borsheim. The winning students were Kimberly Evens of Braden River High School, a nominee in the music category; and Micah Gallagher of Braden River High School, a nominee in the vocational category.

Meghin Delaney, education reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7081. Follow her on Twitter @MeghinDelaney.

This story was originally published May 12, 2016 at 11:30 PM with the headline "39th Golden Herald awards honor high-achieving, Manatee County students ."