Peter Skene Ogden Secondary School (PSO) hosted their annual awards ceremony at the school on June 28.
Subject awards for Languages, language arts, home economics, mathematics, P.E. and many more were handed out to upbeat music and thunderous applause, alongside honours medals awards for athlete of the year, scholar of the year, citizenship, service and renaissance.
The audience, there to congratulate their friends and family on their end of year achievements, was treated to music from talented students Courtney Cave and Cory Mapson.
One student in the crowd, however, was honoured with an award new to School District 27 this year.
As part of the change in British Columbian curriculum, School District 27 has formed a technology committee to help with the applied design, skills and technology aspect.
“They’ve been working really hard at bringing in pieces about coding, about robotics, about a few other things to our district,” said Jerome Beauchamp, the Director of Instruction and Education Services at the school district.
This year, the committee awarded the first ever District Student Technology Leadership Award to PSO student Brandon Short.
“It is my honour to present our first ever district student leadership award in technology,” said committee member Aaron Ulrich.
“As a way to acknowledge the potential in our future technology leaders of tomorrow, the recipient of this award will not only receive a plaque today but he will also receive a small gift to help him on this continual pursuit of this ever expanding field.”
The award accompanying the plaque: a 3D printer.
“I get asked to do a lot of favours by teachers and I always say, ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got a guy,” said his technology education teacher John Murray.
“Then I go to Brandon and Brandon’s my guy and he does all the work and I get all the credit,” he joked while inviting Short onstage.
The announcement was met with cheers of applause from the surrounding audience.
Short has helped with many of PSO’s events, including band concerts, the annual Amnesty Concert and the award ceremony itself.