Last year (2019), Trophy Central started the Sportsmanship Scholarship Award, which is exactly what it sounds like. It’s not just a scholarship — $1000 toward the winner’s first year of college, paid for by Trophy Central — but also an award: one of our shiny, custom trophies highlighting the recipient’s trophy-worthy qualities. We are so pleased to be in our second year of awarding our Sportsmanship Scholarship award to a very deserving student. Just like last year, we set out to find a student exhibiting extreme sportsmanship, compassion and/or kindness. And we have found our winner!

Meet Addison Stone, a former Texas high school senior who is the recipient of what we call The Kind Scholar Award: For Doing Good In and Out of the Classroom.

Congratulations, Addison!!

Team Trophy Central is so thrilled to reward her with not just a trophy, but our $1000 scholarship to help her out with tuition for her first year of college. Addison plans on becoming a middle school teacher, and we couldn’t be more excited to play a small role in helping her achieve her dream!

A Winner, in Every Sense of the Word

What made Team Trophy Central choose Addison as both a trophy and scholarship winner?

Here’s a list of her trophy and scholarship-worthy qualifications:

• Addison racked up over 2200 hours of volunteering during high school. This means that, on top of maintaining good grades, Addison dedicated her free time to doing good. She has volunteered at her community garden, which helps to feed the hungry. She has also mentored teen girls and coached basketball, on top of traveling to juvenile detention centers with her choir and traveling abroad with her ministry to counsel refugees.
• Addison was appointed District Kindness Ambassador when high school officials observed her natural tendency to help her peers.
• Addison is a winner of the Wendy’s High School Heisman award, given out to high school athletes for excellence in academics, athletics and community involvement.
• Her teachers and church members rave about her. Her Advanced Placement Drawing teacher, said “She is extremely mature, constantly taking tasks upon herself to ease the workload of others, myself included. Addie tirelessly volunteers to aid other students in class and around our campus. She uses her art to help us beautify our halls with posters, flyers, and other graphic work that she has as a commissioned artist… She uses her natural ability to lead others with kindness in the classroom and on the court as an integral part of our basketball team.” An administrator at Addison’s church, said: “She excels in school both in the classroom and in the arts. She has a great talent for time management and ensuring her time is well spent investing not only in her future but in the future of others.”

Teaching the Next Generation of Sue Hecks

Congratulations once again, Addison! Team Trophy Central wishes you the best of luck in college and on your journey to becoming a middle school teacher. We hope you will nurture and support all the Sue Hecks in your classroom because Sue Heck (a fictional character on the sitcom The Middle) is who inspired our monthly Random Acts of Trophy-ness “Show Us Your Sue” award! We wanted to reward kindness and good deeds, but even more important than that, we wanted to reward those who make the world a better, more sparkly place by being themselves. Like Sue Heck, not everyone excels in sports or other traditional trophy-awarding spheres like theater or choir. But being good at activities you’d typically win a trophy for is not all that matters in life. At Trophy Central, we believe that there are all kinds of things that make you trophy-worthy! We believe Sue Heck’s persistence, her drive to never, EVER give up, is inspiring. Sue always makes lemons out of lemonade and in doing so, shows those around her that failure is not an ending, just a detour — and an opportunity to make something even better happen. If that isn’t trophy-worthy, we don’t know what is.