Nominate a senior

Mount Horeb grows more good kids than we could ever hope to honor. We choose up to eighteen seniors a year — two at a time at our monthly meetings — and the hard truth is that we have to leave wonderful young people off the list. Every nomination is read with care, and even the ones we can't include tell us something about the student, and about the person who took the time to say so.

What we're hoping you'll help us find isn't the top of the class or the captain of the team — though plenty of them are. We're looking for the senior who gives their time to this community, especially in the ways that lift up younger kids. There's no single mold for it. Some have volunteered in a handful of places; some have started something of their own, led a club, or gone off to do real good somewhere and come home to do more of it. What they share is a habit of showing up for other people, on top of everything a senior year already asks of them. These are future Optimists, whether they ever join a club or not — they are already doing the very thing we try to do: believing in young people, and giving their time away. If you know a Mount Horeb senior like that, we would truly love to hear about them.

All high school seniors — public, private, and home-schooled — who live in the Mount Horeb school district are eligible. We are accepting nominations for the 2026–27 school year through April 1, 2027. Past honorees are featured here and on our Facebook page, if you'd like to see the kind of young people we mean.