Morris Receives Pineville Outstanding Youth Award
PINEVILLE — At Pineville Elementary’s eighth-grade graduation ceremony, graduates faced a stage displaying twinkling lights, red, black, and white balloons, and supportive administration as Outstanding Youth Award nominees made their way to the stage.
Students Kole Lewis, Grace Roberts, and Kaleigha Morris stood on the stage as presenter Kay Roe spoke for the Epsilon Sigma Alpha Lambda Chi Chapter, presenting the outstanding youth award recipient with its custom plaque. Roe said the competition was close because all the nominees displayed great leadership and character. The crowd was still as Roe called Kaleigha Morris’ name, declaring her the winner.
Melissa Sutherland, Jr. High ELA teacher at Pineville Elementary, coordinates Outstanding Youth Award nominees for the school. Sutherland said teachers who have eighth-grade students can nominate any eighthgrader to receive the award. Sutherland tallies the votes and notifies the three top students.
Sutherland said students are notified of their nominations, then students must fill out an application. Sutherland said nominated students must obtain a letter from their parents, three letters of recommendation, undergo an interview process, and write an essay based upon the prompt given. After this process, the Epsilon Sigma Alpha Lambda Chi Chapter chooses the winners at each school.
Sutherland said students who are nominated tend to display leadership characteristics, are responsible, respectful, are involved in the community, are good
students, and display good character.
Morris, the recipient of the award this year, had Sutherland as a teacher for two years. Sutherland said she could always rely upon Morris inside and outside the classroom, noting Morris is a respectful and responsible student.
“You always have those students who do anything and everything,” Sutherland said, referring to the nominees. “All three of them were very deserving.”
Sutherland said Morris always does the right thing, and she’s proud of her as a student.
“She’s a student you can always count on to do what’s right,” Sutherland said.
When she heard her name called on stage, Morris said, she looked straight at her sister — Kalista Morris. Morris said Kalista had received the award when she was promoted from eighth grade and knew her sister could no longer “rub the win in” because she herself had won.
Morris, 14, said she enjoyed the process she had to undergo as an Outstanding Youth Award nominee. Morris said she turned in four letters of recommendation instead of three, wrote a strong essay and enjoyed the
interview process.
“In the interview, they asked me questions like what qualities I look for in a friend, what I would do if I saw somebody doing the wrong thing, and what I would do if my friends were involved with the wrong people,” Morris said.
Morris said she said she’d want a friend to be nice, caring, non-dramatic, truthful, and to be able to know right from wrong.
Morris said she felt confident but knew her competition was strong, noting Grace and Kole both had a good chance of winning, too. Morris said she was excited when she won.
“I was excited because my sister has also won the award,” Morris said. “I saw my sister’s face whenever I did win, and it made me feel like I could be excited for myself. I was over the moon about it.”
Morris said her plaque is important to her, and so is receiving the award, because she feels that she did what was right at Pineville Elementary School.
“Just to be presented with that plaque that has your name engraved on it, it felt like I really did what I was supposed to in this school, and I was a nice person,” Morris said. “It pays off.”