The 2023 Silver Knights were honored. They will definitely make the world a better place
One sold homegrown bananas, taught piano lessons and babysat — all to raise money to travel to Kenya, where she worked in the heat to help build two classrooms and rehab bathrooms in an overcrowded school.
Another used Zoom to tutor Indigenous refugee children in Mindanao, which has the highest rate of poverty in the Philippines.
And yet another created Smiles4AllMiami, a nonprofit, to donate toothbrushes to people living in a local homeless shelter and to children living in an orphanage in the Dominican Republic.
These are just three of the stories behind the extraordinarily talented 30 high school seniors from Miami-Dade and Broward counties who were honored Thursday evening as Miami Herald/el Nuevo Herald Silver Knight Award winners at the James L. Knight Center in downtown Miami. Now in its 65th year, the annual Silver Knight Awards ceremony showcases the academic excellence and community service projects of South Florida high school seniors.
READ THE STORIES OF THE 30 SILVER KNIGHT WINNERS
The 750 students nominated this year from 69 Miami-Dade and 32 Broward public, charter and private schools were glammed out for the occasion, accompanied by giddy friends and family. Much like at the Oscars, the winners were called onto the stage after their name was read aloud by a Herald presenter, greeted with cheers and whoops from the packed auditorium. There, they had a medallion draped across their neck and handed a Silver Knight statuette engraved with their name and the field they were honored in.
The students were judged in 15 high school disciplines: art, athletics, business, digital media, drama, English, general scholarship, journalism, mathematics, music, science, social science, speech, vocational tech and world languages. In addition to the 30 winners — 15 each in Miami-Dade and Broward — 90 other students were named Honorable Mentions, 45 in each county.
Courtney Hartung and Ainsley Abell, both seniors at Coral Glades High School in Broward County, spoke excitedly ahead of the ceremony.
Hartung, 18, was nominated for athletics. The swim team captain worked this past year to restore and rebuild the swim team. Abell, 18, who won an Honorable Mention for art, organized a financial literacy project, which taught the basics of finances to elementary-aged students and provided information on financial topics such as loans for older students.
“I’m just happy to be here,” said Abell. “It’s an honor to be here.”
Each of the 30 Silver Knight Award winners will receive a $2,000 scholarship from the Herald Charities Foundation, plus the medallion and a Silver Knight statue. They also receive 25,000 miles from American Airlines for one round-trip flight in the continental U.S.
Each of the 90 students who were named Honorable Mentions will receive a plaque and a $500 scholarship from the Herald Charities Foundation.
A total of 83 judges across different professions interviewed the 750 nominees, 89 more students than the 661 total in 2022.
Decades of a ‘promising’ tradition
John S. Knight, the former Miami Herald publisher, created the tradition in 1959 to recognize the talents of the young people in South Florida. Among the people sitting in the audience in April 1959 at the Dade County Auditorium, the site of the first ceremony, was William Conti, a senior from North Miami High and piano prodigy.
He won the Silver Knight Award for Music that year and would later go on to be nominated for three Academy Awards, including winning one for Best Original Score for the film, “The Right Stuff.” (He also was nominated for writing the song “Gonna Fly Now” from Rocky, and the title song of For Your Eyes Only.)
Since that first ceremony, more than 17,000 high school seniors have been named Silver Knights or Honorable Mentions. Past Silver Knight Award winners include:
▪ Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, who won the Silver Knight in Science in 1982 as a Palmetto High senior
▪ Ted Hendricks, who played 15 seasons in the NFL and was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame, won the Silver Knight in Athletics in 1965 from Hialeah High
▪ Frances Cook, the first U.S. woman to head a diplomatic post in the Middle East, who was the Silver Knight winner in Social Science in 1963, representing South Dade High
Speaking to the crowd of nominees, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava each of the students have now joined that “remarkable list of Silver Knights who’ve shaped not only Miami-Dade County, but the world.”
“At such a young age, each of you has already demonstrated much wisdom, growing leadership and a keep understanding of the meaning of service,” Cava said. “And tonight’s ceremony serves as only the beginning of your assuredly bright future.”
Cava, the first woman mayor of Miami-Dade County, also gave a special shoutout to all the women and girls in the audience. She also recognized the Miami Herald for its “outstanding commitment” to South Florida and the 65th anniversary of the Silver Knight Awards.
Bob McFarlin, the general manager of the Miami Herald, el Nuevo Herald and the Bradenton Herald who hosted part of the event, told the students not to look down upon Honorable Mentions.
“Now, don’t think you have to win the award to make it big,” he said. “The fact that you are even nominated carries tremendous weight for the promise you have inside you to make things better and change the world.
“Look at a 1988 Honorable Mention in Drama from Miami Palmetto Senior High School, for example. ... Fast forward a few hard working years and in June of 2022, Ketanji Brown Jackson became the first Black woman and the first former federal public defender to serve on the Supreme Court.”
Before the event, Sophia Marticorena, a senior at Miami Senior High, shared similar sentiments to McFarlin. The 17-year-old, who was nominated for the athletics category and is a black belt in Korean Taekwondo and an instructor, said she was “jittery” and “excited.”
“I’m not sure what to expect,” the 17-year-old said. “But we’ve already won just being a part of it. We’re grateful to be here.”
This story was originally published May 25, 2023 at 12:00 AM.
