What makes a legend? Is it having a good GPA? Being proactive? Going the extra mile? In the end, being a legend is all of these and more.
Every teacher wishes all of their students had these traits, although not everyone will and for those that do contain these traits, they don’t always get the recognition that they deserve. In order to make sure that these students receive the recognition they deserve, the Liberty admin team decided to start the Liberty Legends award.
This award showcases the stand out students who show all the traits that define a legend. Every teacher in the school has the chance and are encouraged to nominate a student of their choosing for a Liberty Legend award. However, once the students are notified of their nomination, the teacher who picked them is kept a secret until the ceremony. Once they find out who nominated them, the students also find out why, as each teacher wrote a paragraph explaining what stood out to them about this student and why they selected them to be a Liberty Legend.
Assistant Principal Stanton Schumacher is the organizer for this event, and for the third year in a row, it has been a success. As the leader for this event, Schumacher’s goal is to make sure that these legendary students get the full recognition that they deserve.
“The Liberty admin team created Liberty Legends as a way to honor students who might go unnoticed,” Schumacher said. “We wanted to acknowledge students who have consistently exceeded our school’s expectations but might not get the notoriety they deserve.”
Every teacher has a different criteria when it comes to picking their legend. Some do it based on seniority, some do it on best GPA, kindness, friendly, etc. No student is able to get the award twice which is why teachers have to make a big decision when it comes to this award.
“It is up to the teacher to determine their own qualifications to nominate a student to be a Liberty Legend,” Schumacher said. “Typically students are selected because they are kind, responsible, respectful, and hardworking.”
Some students are picked because of how good of a person they are and how easy they get along with other students. One legend, Naudia Watson-Booker (12) was picked by her English teacher Brooke Braswell as she defined the traits of what a Liberty Legend should look like.
“Naudia is a fun person, I think she gets along well with most people, she asks good questions, she loves to learn and makes everybody feel comfortable,” Braswell said.
All the teachers who nominated a student had a different reason for why they nominated their person. However, in the end everyone was picked because of something special, because they are something special, and because they really are Liberty Legends.
