Twenty-five Hillsboro seniors honored at academic program
Sixty-one Marion County high school seniors were honored for their scholastic achievements Thursday night at the Marion County Academic Awards Program. The event was held at Tabor College.
Seniors from Centre, Goessel, Hillsboro, Marion, and Peabody joined family members for the evening, which featured a catered dinner, musical entertainment by a Tabor freshmen musical group, and a motivational address by Tabor faculty member Wendell Loewen. To qualify, each students had to maintain a 3.25 grade point average over six semesters of high school.
Hillsboro High School had the most students recognized, with 25. Marion High School had 16 students honored, Goessel had 9, Centre had eight, and Peabody had three.
Each student recognized was presented with a certificate and a Roget's Thesaurus. Also, each student qualifies for a $3,800 per year honors scholarship at Tabor, if he or she choses to go to college there.
After two pieces performed by the Tabor musical group — which included two HHS grads in Melanie Sullivan and Jonathan Regier — Wendell Loewen spoke on the topic "Wearing yourself inside out."
In his message, Loewen stressed the importance of being a genuine leader, one who's completely authentic. That's a responsibility that extends to everyone, Loewen said, since leadership is defined as influence — and we all have some degree of influence on others.
"Students, you have been recognized as leaders," he told the audience.
Loewen said there are two main components of authentic leadership: integrity and servanthood.
Integrity plays into the "wearing yourself inside out" theme, Loewen said. It's about being completely honest with others and keeping your promises, both big ones and small ones. It's "conforming reality to your words."
Next, Loewen said that to be a leader, you must first be a servant.
"This is not quite what the rest of the world will tell you," he said.
In fact, in the Bible, Jesus said that if you desire to lead others, you must first serve them, Loewen said. That will surprise people who expect you to fight to get ahead.
"Our world is in desperate need of real leaders," he said.
