The arena at Pioneer Career and Technology Center played host to a crowd of Pioneer students and proud family members last Thursday, May 1, for the annual honors night.
During the event, students were recognized for achieving, performing and succeeding at extraordinary levels. This year’s event marked the school’s 45th anniversary providing quality education to area students in over 30 career tech programs.
Scholarships were awarded to many students for continuing education with the total amount of awards over $525,000. Pioneer also announced 164 special awards presented to 134 Pioneer students.
A major highlight of the evening was the announcement of this year’s Byron H. Carmean Award winner, Kilee Kimmel, a Buckeye Central High School senior. Kimmel has excelled in the Exercise Science & Sports Medicine program with instructor Mike Millward.
The Carmean Award is the highest award given to a Pioneer student and was created to recognize students with outstanding qualities of character, personal dedication and service to education. Kimmel has maintained a 4.0 GPA all through high school, participates in online post-secondary classes from three different colleges and has served as a lab class officer both years at Pioneer.
This year Kimmel was Pioneer’s Senior Nominee for the Franklin B. Walter Scholarship Award and has also served as an officer for the Health Occupations Student Organization (HOSA) both junior & senior year.
In addition to Kimmel’s classroom success, she is a tremendous athlete. She has lettered in volleyball all four years of high school and was voted team captain as a senior. She surpassed 1,000 assists as a junior, raked in numerous conference and district honors as a sophomore, junior and senior, as well as participated in the State Final Four Tournament with her team. For the past nine years she has also participated in club volleyball, where she has played in the Junior Olympics National Volleyball Tournament every year from 2005 – 2008.
She has lettered three years in basketball, voted team captain her senior year and received: Top Defender and Co-Most Valuable Player award her senior year. Kilee is headed to Ashland University in the fall to receive her bachelor’s degree in dietetics while also playing volleyball as an Ashland Eagle.
This year’s deserving nominees for this award include seniors:
• Cheyenne Butler, Galion, Culinary Arts
• Raven Crawford, Galion, Carpentry
• Nickalous McPherson, Shelby, CAD
• Michael Miller, Willard, Welding
Additional award winners and scholarship recipients can be found in the document at left.
