Meet the 2024 Silver Knight winners

2024 AWARDS

One student built an organization that gave away more than 1 million meals to children in Homestead.

Another used Artificial Intelligence to create a breast cancer model that provides a faster and more accurate diagnosis.

A third painted the history of the Sistrunk neighborhood in Fort Lauderdale on plywood boards, beautifying the area and teaching residents about the city’s oldest Black community.

Such were among the extraordinary accomplishments of the 30 Miami-Dade and Broward high school seniors who were honored Wednesday evening at the James L. Knight Center as Miami Herald/el Nuevo Silver Knight winners.

Now in its 66th year, the Silver Knight Awards recognize the academic excellence and community service projects of South Florida high seniors in public and private schools.

READ MORE: The 2024 Silver Knights were honored. They will definitely make the world a better place

Previous winners have included Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who won the Silver Knight in Science in 1982 representing Palmetto High, and Ted Hendricks, a former UM standout and NFL Hall of Famer who won a Silver Knight in Athletics for Hialeah High in 1965. The newest U.S. Supreme Court justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, won an Honorable Mention in Drama as a Palmetto High senior in 1988.

All told, nearly 1,500 students have won Silver Knight Awards since the first class was nominated in 1959.

This year, 788 students in Miami-Dade and Broward counties were nominated, representing 77 schools in Miami-Dade and 29 schools in Broward.

The students are judged by professionals in 15 disciplines: art, athletics, business, digital and interactive media, drama, English & literature, general scholarship, journalism, mathematics, music & dance, science, social science, speech, vocational technical and world languages.

In addition to the 30 winners — 15 each in Miami-Dade and Broward — 90 other students were named Honorable Mentions. So, click on the stories below of the 30 Silver Knights in Miami-Dade and Broward.

Their stories will inspire you and instill in you hope for the new generation of young people who are making a difference in the world — and in their communities.