Meet the 2026 Unsung Heroes of School Spirit Award Winners
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Schools with a recurring, organized spirit wear program are more than twice as likely to see high turnout at their biggest community events, according to our 2026 School Spirit Gap Survey. Someone has to be the reason that program exists year after year.
This summer, we asked people to nominate the coaches, teachers, counselors, and school staff who quietly make that happen, and we heard back with hundreds of stories from 46 states. We read every one, scored them against the same criteria, and narrowed the field to 10 winners.
Here’s who they are, what the nominations told us as a whole, and how they and their nominators describe the work in their own words.
Meet the 2026 Winners
Yanadira Mendez Magana, College Advisor β Houston, Texas
Yanadira is the college advisor at an all-girls public school in Houston. This year marks the first graduating class she’s guided from start to finish, a milestone she calls “a full circle moment,” since she was once a first-generation student herself in the first graduating class of her own charter network back in Dallas.
“They crave being seen and they crave someone to believe in them,” she told us about her students. “I think that’s the most important characteristic that any educator should have.”
One of her favorite traditions is what her school calls Signing Day. Instead of graduation being the big moment, seniors keep their college decisions secret until they reveal them live, in front of family and the younger students who’ll follow in their footsteps.
Ximena Moreno, School Manager β Oakland, California
Ximena is a School Manager at LPS Oakland R&D, and also an alumna. She came back after graduating to find the school she remembered had lost enrollment, staff, and many of its traditions over the years. She’s spent the past five years rebuilding it from the ground up.
Her nominator described her as someone who plans nearly every major school culture event, leads the school’s Parent Guardian Association, and stays hours after school to help families navigate challenges, often work that happens well outside the boundaries of her job description.
Julie Longmuir, Business Manager β New York City, New York
Julie has been the business manager at a K-12 public school in Manhattan for 10 years, supporting a staff of 200. She built the school’s supply and fundraising systems from scratch, but the part she lights up about is the haunted house she’s run with the theater department for over a decade.
“Please don’t make it sound like I do all this work in a bubble,” she told us. “We are indeed a really fantastic team, and I wouldn’t want to do it without them.”
She also runs a school-wide “coin war” fundraiser, tracking collections on a world map on her wall. Students who bring in foreign coins earn bonus points, and yes, she has found a tooth in the jar before.
Kellie Zephir, Choir Director and Music Teacher β Baltimore, Maryland
Kellie teaches choir at two Baltimore County schools. When she started at Eastern Technical High School, the program had nearly been cut and had just 15 students. Two years later, it has grown past 80. At Overlea High School, her honors group of 14 kids has grown into a 100-plus voice mass choir.
“If you build it, they will come,” she told us. “If you truly believe that everyone could add to this collective, you start to make kids feel really good about being part of something good.”
She also pointed out something we noticed ourselves while reading nominations: more music teachers were nominated for building school spirit than coaches were.
Jaclyn Schwieger, Head Volleyball Coach β Chicago, Illinois
Known to her team as “Coach Swag,” Jaclyn took over a volleyball program at Lincoln Park High School coming off a 2-22 season. One of her first moves was ordering the same team shirt for every player who made the roster, a small gesture her players said helped them feel like part of something together.
Her nominator, a player on the team, wrote that in Jaclyn’s first season as head coach, the team won its conference. “She didn’t just coach our team,” the nomination read. “She helped create it.”
Brigette Warner, Principal β Boise, Idaho
Brigette is the principal of Whitney Elementary, a Title I school where 99% of students come from economically disadvantaged households. Her nominator described a weekly Family Recess she started to give parents dedicated time with their kids and school staff, along with a Back-to-School Pancake Feed and a partnership with a local bike club that provides free bike tune-ups for students.
Her nominator told us that if she wins, Brigette plans to use the site credit on Whitney gear for her staff rather than for herself, so they can wear something that says they belong to the school too.
Kristen Weintraut, German Teacher β Lafayette, Indiana
Known to her students as “Frau,” Kristen has been the sole German teacher at Central Catholic Jr-Sr High School since 2008, after an abrupt retirement left the school without one mid-year. She built a study travel program from a group of 9 students in 2012 into more than 60 students and parents crossing Eastern Europe together last summer.
Her nominator described her selling hot dogs and pretzels at 4 a.m. at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to help fund student travel, often at the expense of time with her own three kids. Other school clubs have since copied her fundraising model to send students to Spain, Portugal, and Italy.
Phalia West, School Counselor β Germantown, Maryland
Phalia is a counselor at Seneca Valley High School. When we asked her what actually builds school spirit, she gave us one of the clearest answers we heard all year.
“It kind of comes down to three things,” she told us. “Relationship building, ownership, and consistency.”
She also drew a distinction we hadn’t heard articulated quite that way before: counselors build trust precisely because they’re not the ones handing out discipline. “We’re that safe space in the building,” she said. Years after helping two students earn full rides to college, one of them passed away, and his best friend credited Phalia by name at the funeral for helping shape who he’d become. “That was ten years ago,” she told us. “So something I said or did for those two boys worked. I just keep doing it.”
Nick Drabik, Band Director β Waterbury, Connecticut
Nick built the first marching band John F Kennedy High School had ever had. Five years later, it has grown from 20 students to nearly 100, placing 3rd in the state and 5th nationally.
His nominator wrote that the program has become more than music. Nick has helped students turn around failing grades, and shows up for kids who need food, someone to listen, or somewhere to go after school.
Raymond Mendez, Band Director β Kingsville, Texas
Raymond is a band director at Santa Gertrudis ISD.
What Hundreds of Nominations Told Us
Before we narrowed things down to 10 winners, we read every single nomination that came in during our two week window. A few patterns stood out.
Teachers were nominated more than every other role combined. Coaches, often assumed to be the default face of school spirit, made up a smaller share than we expected.
| Nominee’s Role | Share of All Nominations | What This Means |
|---|---|---|
| Teacher | 56% | The single largest group by a wide margin |
| School Administrator | 21% | Principals, counselors, and business managers doing culture work outside the classroom |
| Coach | 8% | A smaller share than the “coaches build school spirit” assumption suggests |
| Other | 7% | Roles that didn’t fit a standard category, from Inkers who work with schools to community volunteers |
| PTA/PTO Leader | 6% | Parent volunteers running fundraisers and events |
| Parent | 2% | Individual parents recognized outside of a formal PTA role |
We also looked at who did the nominating. Coworkers nominated coworkers most often, which makes sense since they see the work up close. But parents and community members together accounted for nearly 30% of all nominations, which tells us this kind of work gets noticed well outside the building too.
Our 10 winners span 8 states, from Idaho to Connecticut. Between them, they’ll bring home a combined $55,000 in school grants, $500 in site credit each, and a custom VIP gift set.
The Common Thread
Read enough of these nominations and a pattern shows up. None of these 10 people set out to be recognized. They kept showing up long before anyone was watching, one season, one semester, one Tuesday at a time, and any recognition came later, if it came at all.
Every one of these stories exists because someone else took the time to write it down. Thank you to the everyone who nominated someone this year.
If there’s a person doing this kind of work at your own school, we hope this is a nudge to tell them so, contest or no contest.
Q&A About the Contest
Q: Who was eligible for the Unsung Heroes of School Spirit Awards?
Any coach, teacher, parent, or PTA/PTO leader who helps coordinate school spirit activities, custom apparel, or events at a K-12 school in the United States could be nominated by someone else in their community.
Q: How did we choose the 10 winners?
Our team read all the hundreds of nominations and scored each one against four equally weighted criteria: story authenticity and specificity, demonstrated impact, the role and scope of the organizer, and how well the nominee and their school embodied community, inclusion, and respect.
Q: What does each Unsung Heroes of School Spirit winner receive?
Each winner’s school receives a $5,000 unrestricted grant through our Three Hearts Initiative. Winners also receive up to $500 in Custom Ink site credit and a VIP gift set as a personal thank you.
Q: Will Custom Ink run the Unsung Heroes of School Spirit Awards again?
We loved reading these stories and hope to make this an annual tradition. Follow our blog or social channels for updates on next year’s nomination window.