A lot has changed in 50 years, but not the quality of South Florida's Silver Knights.

The prestigious Silver Knight Awards -- bestowed on high school seniors who are standouts in their communities and classrooms -- reached its golden anniversary this year. The latest class of Miami-Dade County winners will be announced at a ceremony Tuesday night at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami. The 15 Broward winners were announced last month.

In the past half-century, more than 16,000 students have been nominated and 1,100 have become Silver Knights. They include rocket scientists, corporate CEOs, diplomats, judges, doctors, musicians, artists and teachers.

This year, in an effort to reconnect past winners with new Silver Knights and their schools, The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald hosted a series of events for Silver Knight alumni. Miami-Dade County officials declared Tuesday Silver Knights Day.

Also on Tuesday, a group of past winners will gather for a luncheon downtown, featuring speakers Steve Reinemund, the retired chairman of the Board of PepsiCo and the 1966 Silver Knight winner in citizenship, and Ambassador Frances D. Cook, the first female head of post for the United States in the Middle East and the 1963 Silver Knight winner in Social Science.

Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, a 1982 Silver Knight in science, will deliver a video message from Seattle.

SHARED PRIDE

Many of the Silver Knight alumni will return to their old high schools to talk with students before attending Tuesday night's ceremony.

''The Silver Knights are a moment of great pride for us every year, but the opportunity to reunite winners from across 50 years has been especially incredible,'' said David Landsberg, president and publisher of The Miami Herald Media Co. ``To see the impact that the Silver Knight has had on the lives of the winners, and to see what they, in turn, have done with their lives, makes us enormously proud of the program, and of the people it has recognized.''

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation paid for the alumni events. The foundation also gave a $205,000 grant to allow Hands on Miami to set up a mentorship program and a speaking series with Silver Knights.

''After 50 years of the Silver Knight program producing community leaders, it's a logical evolution for Hands on Miami to bring these folks together in a meaningful way that will have a good impact on the community,'' said Pat Morris, president of the nonprofit Hands on Miami.

Since the program's first year, Silver Knight winners have embodied a special combination of intelligence and human spirit.

Edward Fleck won for citizenship in the inaugural year, 1959, when gas was 25 cents a gallon and a postage stamp cost four cents. At that time, there were 10 categories and each winner received $200 and a silver statuette. Among his fellow winners that year was Bill Conti, who went on to compose the Rocky soundtrack and win an Oscar and three Emmys.

Fleck said he has thought about his Silver Knight award to help get him through difficult periods in the past 50 years.

''I think there are times in everybody's lives when you wish things were going better than they are,'' said Fleck, 67, who spent 37 years as a special agent with the FBI. During his career, he investigated the Martin Luther King Jr. assassination, helped piece together airplane hijackings and caught bank robbers.

Join the discussion

Note: If this is your first time using our NEW commenting system, you will have to LOG OUT and then LOG BACK IN.

The Miami Herald is pleased to provide this opportunity to share information, experiences and observations about what's in the news. Some of the comments may be reprinted elsewhere in the site or in the newspaper. We encourage lively, open debate on the issues of the day, and ask that you refrain from profanity, hate speech, personal comments and remarks that are off point. In order to post comments, you must be a registered user of MiamiHerald.com. Your username will show along with the comments you post. Thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts.

     Showing: Oldest first Newest first Most-recommended first Least-recommended first

@Nyx.AuthorDisplayName@ wrote on @Nyx.PostedAtTime@:

@Nyx.CommentBody@

@Nyx.Recommender@ @Nyx.AbuseReporter@