When a parent fell down an entire flight of stairs during an Open House Night at the beginning of the school year, senior Nathan Simon didn't think twice...and didn't miss a beat.
He ran to the woman, who was bleeding and starting to go into shock, identified himself as knowing first aid and offered to help. He ran back and forth, and up and down the stairs, quickly grabbing items that others who were assisting needed, and never seemed fazed.
For his quick reaction and service to others, Simon won a Prominent Patriot Award on Monday morning in the West Auditorium.
"I think the main thing I would like other students to take away is that anyone can work to make our school a better place," Simon said. "Opportunity arises all the time to make a difference, and I hope we can all work towards taking more of these opportunities to positively impact our community."
Four senior girls, who teamed up to win the group Prominent Patriot Award, certainly helped to make a positive impact on Freshmen Orientation Day. Like Simon, they saw an issue, and reacted with action.
Shelby Schor, Avery Bock, Pravika Srivastava, and Abigail Minin, student directors of Freshmen Orientation Day, recognized that it was inefficient, and more importantly, no fun for incoming freshmen to wait in long lines for supplies when they first arrived on Freshmen Orientation Day. The group advocated for a new plan to immediately usher freshmen to their advisory groups for a more friendly and less intimidating issuing of supplies...and for a better first impression of Stevenson.
"We wanted to give (Freshmen Orientation Day) a bigger twist and make it feel more like a pep rally," Srivastava said. "That was our motive: To make it more welcoming so freshmen didn't feel intimidated to come to school and be surrounded by 1,000 other kids they've never seen before."
Moving forward, Stevenson plans to keep this routine in place for future Freshmen Orientation Days.
"If you feel something is unnatural or not working well, don't be afraid to speak up about it and try to change it to be the way that it'd work best for Stevenson," Schor said. "Switching everything about FOD was a lot of work. For our hard work to be recognized, it feels good."
The Prominent Patriot award was created in order to recognize students whose actions reflect those of someone with good character and demonstrate what it means to be a good citizen of the Stevenson community. Stevenson High School already recognizes students who are academically or athletically accomplished, but it is equally important to foster and recognize the actions of individuals who foster responsible, healthy, and ethical decision-making skills. The award recognizes students whose actions are beyond the expectations of someone in their position.
Here is a list of all 56 students who were nominated for the Prominent Patriot Award:
Ernst Achiampong, Reshma Adigal, Ansh Aggarwal, Nathaniel Bekin, Eshaam Bhattad, Roman Bilanicz, Avery Bock, Nitin Bright, Maelys Cadot, Florianne Che, Chi Chia Chen, Samuel Entin, Meara Evans, Myles Fierer, Julia Galyshych, Daemy Garcia, Nicholas Gawor, Nextanali Godoy, Manasa Gogula, Noah Hanif, Nethmi Hewawitharana, Lillah Hill, Evan Hollis, Ainika Hou, Elena Hu, Mija Jegers, Joshua Kahlert, Key Kanemori, Kacper Klusek, Eleanor Kroc, Olivia Lee, Sage Manning, Nawar Masood, Yug Mehta, Kailey Miller, Abigail Minin, Colby Nixon, Shaila Pochiraju, Iman Qazi, Kashyap Rajesh, Hailey Rockoff, Vedant Rupwal, Shelby Schor, Rayaan Shaik, Shanee Sheinman, Nathan Simon, Catherine Sobol, Pravika Srivastava, Hrithik Sugumar, Rajan Sukhatme, Tejas Sukhatme, Zayd Syed, Alexis Trojan, Natalie Wise, Daniel Xu, Karina Zakabluk, Aurelija Zalane, Jacob Zerull, Justin Zhao.