Marian High School in Mishawaka is a Catholic school that strongly follows its motto of “Learn, Serve, Lead.” It’s a school full of amazing role models and intelligent students who not only focus on academics but also on their relationship with Christ. Marian values its faculty, staff, and stu dents. This is shown through the wide variety of school activities and programs. These can range from clubs and sports to award ceremonies for scholarships and scholastic arts. There’s a very wide variety of ways Marian shows its love and support for its students. But there’s one program at Marian that stands out among the rest, giving students a chance to be recognized for the hard work they’ve done in the school’s classrooms. The program is Marian’s Senior of the Month, which highlights 18 seniors (nine boys and nine girls) each school year. All seniors have an opportunity to be nominated. The nominees are selected first by Marian’s own faculty and staff, then the seniors who were chosen are then picked by a committee that represents the different departments within the school. Once the seniors are selected, the male female recipients are presented with the award at the school’s monthly all-school Mass. The faculty member or staff member who voted for the senior is given the opportunity to present the award to the student. In presenting the award, the faculty or staff member talks about their personal experience with that senior – the type of person they are, the classes they took, and the clubs, sports, or extracurriculars they were part of. This build-up gives the school community a chance to guess who will win the award. After talking about the senior, they announce the name of the recipient. The senior then goes up to the front and receives a plaque to commemorate their award. John Loesch and Emma Winslow were each honored as Marian High School Seniors of the Month for October. After both seniors are announced and presented, photos are taken, and they can go see their families, who are invited to join the all-school Mass and the ceremony that day. After being honored, both senior recipients will be shown on Notre Dame Federal Credit Union (NDFCU) signs across the county. NDFCU partners with Marian by highlighting the Seniors of the Month, and in return, Marian strongly encourages its families to bank there. Marian also promotes its Seniors of the Month on social media platforms, such as Instagram and Facebook. It also highlights the senior winners on a monitor near the main entrance. The school is great at making sure these students get the recognition they deserve. The Senior of the Month program has been a part of Marian High School for years. It began around 15 years ago and was founded by Carl Loesch, a former principal at Marian who now works in the diocese’s Secretariat for Evangelization and Catechesis. “One of the early lessons I learned from one of my mentors, Principal Fred Tone (a long-time teacher, dean, coach, and principal at Bishop Dwenger), was to always be on the lookout for good ideas that you can borrow and adapt to your school.” Loesch said he was driving to a principals meeting in Warsaw with the principal of Saint Joseph High School, Susan Richter. They were chatting about how things were going at their respective schools, and Richter mentioned that Saint Joe had a program called Senior of the Month. Loesch thought it was a wonderful idea. With his mentor’s words in mind, he decided he wanted to bring the program to Marian to honor seniors who were quietly doing the right thing – not a chance for another popularity contest but a chance to really highlight the senior students who were doing incredible and virtuous things that deserved to be honored. He also wanted to acknowledge students who follow Marian’s motto of “Learn, Serve, Lead.” “One of my wife’s sayings is that we need to water the flowers instead of just pulling the weeds,” Loesch said. “Meaning, we should highlight virtue and goodness rather than criticizing bad behavior.”  Loesch proposed the idea to the administration. Once it was approved, they began to think of senior students who were great role models for their peers and showed great virtue, and Marian’s Senior of the Month was officially born. It’s an opportunity to recognize those who may be overlooked but who do truly great things for their peers, their families, and the school staff and community. Since its founding, Marian High School’s Senior of the Month program has become one of the most loved and appreciated programs Marian offers. It’s a motivation for students to do the right thing and a great reminder of our school motto, “Learn, Serve, Lead.” Lauralynn Duensing is a junior at Marian High School. The post Marian Celebrates Seniors Who ‘Learn, Serve, Lead’ appeared first on Today's Catholic. ...read more read less