By Joseph Langley and Autumn Pecarovich
The fourth annual Best of the Best Awards are coming up on Thursday, May 9, 2019. That means nominations will be rolling out soon! As such, many questions are being raised on how the selection process works.
The Best of the Best awards ceremony evolved from the Minarets Media Awards.
The Minarets Media Awards included art, music, and sometimes floral. Today, the awards ceremony has undergone the name change and expanded to include numerous categories, from IT Innovator to The Numerator (Underclass Mathematician of the year). As the event has grown, and more students are recognized, the focus has shifted to highlight students- instead of performances- in a way that is similar to the Oscars. They come up at the end of the year to celebrate academic, athletic, and artistic achievement. Last year there were a total of 41 awards categories to celebrate the Best of the Best.
While interviewing Principal Daniel Ching, he talked about the selection process. This process has three tiers. First, the teachers nominate, then the students vote, and lastly, the teachers finalize the votes. After these steps are completed the two results are compared. If necessary, a board of teachers and staff will review the results, to break any ties, and come up with the final decision. Principal Ching said, “Our goal is to make sure that it’s not a popularity contest, but that it's also not a teacher's pet situation.”
In an interview with Mr. Wilson, head coordinator of the event, he said; “We want to make sure we include every student and every project that should be in that field- five for each category. We review the categories every year. We try to keep it to forty categories because we don’t want the show to go on for four hours. We want it to be a two and a half hour show at most.” While forty is a lot of categories, it does not cover every area that deserves recognition. In order to avoid the long runtime of the ceremony, while still celebrating these areas, the idea of a second ceremony to award more students has been discussed.
When asked about the 2019 nomination process, Principal Ching said; “The process will look similar to last year. Our plan is to form concrete criteria on paper so that for years to come, it follows those same principles. There shouldn’t be room for subjectivity- it’s really hard to not have subjectivity involved in award ceremonies- but we're trying to make it as rubric based as possible.”
As Minarets is a project based school, the Project of the Year award is one of the most highly coveted awards of the event. On that topic, Principal Ching said; “Last year we had a submission form where the teachers had to submit their nomination for Top Project in a Google form that we could download and look through. The tricky thing is, projects in different content areas are really hard to compare. How we assess that is still in development-- because if a student does a really good presentation, all we see is the keynote which is just part of the presentation. So we're still trying to figure that one out.”
When asked about his experiences, 2018 Best of the Best award winner for Sophomore of the Year, Isaiah Gibson, said, “It feels really great to be recognized for my hard work.” He went on to talk about the lead up to his award, and what others can do to follow in his footsteps. “I think being involved in FFA, in the AG mechanics team, and being in leadership last year, helped me earn the nomination and the award. If I was to give advice for someone, it would be, try your hardest! There are a lot of ways you can be successful; if you set your mind to it, you can be it.”
With all this in mind, being your best, and knowing at the end of the day you have put out work that you can be proud of, is the best recognition of all. The Best of the Best awards ceremony highlights many amazing and exemplary students, however this does not mean these are the only students who deserve such recognition. Within every Minarets student lies potential. With focus, dedication, and an emphasis on personal growth, students can push their boundaries and could quite possibly be the Best of the Best one day.