Kennett graduate Kayton Harris wins NIAAA state and regional awards

Photo by Dustin Ward, staff
2018 Kennett graduate Kayton Harris (pictured) was recently selected as the female state winner in Missouri and female section winner in Section V for the 2018 National Student Athlete Scholarship.

2018 Kennett graduate Kayton Harris recently received a distinguished honor from the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (NIAAA).

Harris was selected as the 2018 female state winner in Missouri and 2018 female section winner in Section V for the National Student Athlete Scholarship.

Harris has received a plaque and a $1,500 scholarship for winning each award and remains in contention for the national award.

“I recently had the opportunity to go to the Missouri Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association Conference in Tan Tar A and read my essay after winning the state award,” Harris said. “Then we later got a call that I had won the section award. It’s a great honor to win these awards.”

To be eligible for the award a high school senior must have participated in two sports for at least two years, earn a varsity letter in each of the two sports, and achieve two of the following criteria: (a) minimum of a B+ average, (b) be ranked in the Top 25 percent of their class, (c) have an ACT score of 24 or an SAT score of 1100 (verbal and math).

Each high school nominates one male and one female who meet the above criteria. The nominees are then required to submit an essay describing how high school athletics impacted their life.

Harris, who was a three-sport athlete in high school that had the luxury of playing on nine teams that won district titles and a softball squad that won a state championship, said she elected to make confronting adversity the focal point of her essay.

“I had the opportunity to be a part of many strong programs in high school,” Harris said. “I didn’t experience being part of a losing team until girls basketball season my senior year so I decided to center my essay around what I learned from the adversity of a losing season.”

Harris is one of eight section winners that are finalists for the national award. One male and one female are selected from the eight section winners to receive the national award. National winners are notified by the NIAAA Office in August and invited to attend the NIAAA national conference in San Antonio, Texas, in December.