Isabella Lagarto

On Nov. 13, Miami Palmetto Senior High announced its 2023-2024 Silver Knight Nominees. Miami Herald’s Silver Knight is one of the most prestigious awards in Miami-Dade and Broward County, recognizing 12 grade students in public, private and religious schools who not only excel academically but also give back to their communities through service projects. 

Every year, AP English Literature and Composition teacher and Silver Knight coordinator Andrea Spivak nominates a select few of MPSH’s seniors for the award. Students may be nominated in 15 categories: Art, Athletics, Business, Digital and Interactive Media, Drama, English & Literature, General Scholarship, Journalism, Mathematics, Music and Dance, , Science, Social Science, Speech, Vocational-Technical and World Languages. Each school nominates one student per category. 

“They are amazing kids, and what is special about the Silver Knights is that they have been working towards service. Palmetto is full of incredible kids that do all different things, but these groups of kids have spent so much of their time serving others which really is the coolest thing,” College Assistance Program Advisor Linda Dwyer said. 

Each of the 30 Silver Knight winners receive a $2,000 scholarship from the Herald Charities Foundation, symbolizing their accomplishments adorned with the coveted Silver Knight statue.

Notable past winners include Jeff Bezos, former CEO of Amazon, who won the Silver Knight in the science category in 1982, and Bill Conti, an Oscar-winning composer who wrote the scores for the “Rocky” and “Karate Kid” films, received the award for music in 1959.

“[Students apply] for the honor of being nominated because many of the students find out they have been nominated after they’ve applied [to college], so it does not go on many applications,” Dwyer said. “My advice isn’t to strive to be a Silver Knight; my advice is to strive to do service and make your project as big as you can for the end goal of helping people.”

Over the course of the next week, The Panther will outline these seniors’ achievements in our Silver Knight series. Stay tuned and check back daily to read about the nominees’ stories, their accomplishments and their plans for the future.

ART: Nicole Gonglewski

Miami Palmetto Senior High senior and Art Silver Knight nominee Nicole Gonglewski has grown up in the field of art. Starting art at a young age, being enthralled by creating comics around the age of eight. As she went on to high school, her painting and illustration have become influenced by life. 

She started using Miami-Dade’s Culture Shock as a way to access the program’s five-dollar tickets to multiple different art shows. After being acquainted with the program she joined Culture Shock. 

“I started taking advantage of the whole $5 tickets thing like when I turned 13 because that’s when you can start taking advantage of the program, and later on I heard that my sister had helped out some in the past and I learned that there was a council and I really wanted to contribute to the program since it gave me an opportunity to see a lot of plays and artworks and events that I previously would have just assumed were too expensive to go to. So, when I learned that there was a council, I just felt that there was a need for me to contribute,” Gonglewski said. 

Culture Shock aims to give students access to tickets at a discounted price, creating greater accessibility to different forms of art in the community.

“Our program makes $5 tickets accessible for all sorts of museums and performances in Miami if you’re between the ages of 13 and 22,” Gonglewski said. “So our mission is essentially to make the arts more accessible for the use of Miami and we really focus on trying to encourage teens and young adults to engage in the arts and learn more about our communities through all of these experiences,” Gonglewski said. 

Culture Shock also focuses on curating a unique space in the art community, encouraging a diverse audience to share their art in their local community. 

“A lot of people don’t see themselves in the art that’s been uplifted in the past. A lot of people don’t relate to the most famous artworks because they don’t see themselves in that or they don’t relate to that. It’s not something that they really see as reflecting themselves for the experiences that they’ve had. So, when you try and encourage everyone to share their art or show them new, contemporary experiences in art that they might not have otherwise seen, you’re promoting engagement within the local community and showing people that art isn’t this super entitled, world, but it actually involves everyone and it’s accessible to anyone,” Gonglewski said. 

Additionally, Gonglewski volunteers weekly at her public library helping organize the catalog. In school she is a part of multiple clubs, being President of the Creative Writing Club and Vice President of the Fashion Committee.