Niceville High’s Hannah Schneidewind state winner in scholarship competition

As the state’s female winner, Hannah has earned a $1,000 scholarship and advances to the national competition. At the national level, she will compete for awards valued at $5,000 and $10,000.

Niceville High’s Hannah Schneidewind has been named the state winner in the Wendy’s High School Heisman Scholarship competition.

Wendy’s High School Heisman is a national competition for high school seniors who are student leaders in sports, academics and community involvement.

As the state’s female winner, Hannah has earned a $1,000 scholarship and advances to the national competition. At the national level, she will compete for awards valued at $5,000 and $10,000.

Hannah, a track and cross country runner NHS, leads the school academically, and she raised over $45,000 towards the cost of installing a rubber surface on the NHS track.

The national finalists will be announced the week of Nov. 6, and the national winners will be announced Dec. 8. National finalists receive a $5,000 award, and national winners receive a $10,000 award.

The Wendy’s High School Heisman Scholarship was created by Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas in 1994. Dave Thomas dropped out of high school when he was 15 years old in order to work full-time and went on to become one of the most successful entrepreneurs in history. While this nontraditional path led to his prosperity, it always worried Dave that others would expect to achieve similar fame and wealth by not finishing high school or attending college.

Faced with this dilemma, at 61 years old, Dave took the required classes to earn his General Equivalency Diploma (GED) and was honored at a ceremony at Coconut Creek High School in Ft. Lauderdale. The senior class of 1993 embraced their honorary classmate by inviting Dave and his wife Lorraine to the senior prom and voting him “Most Likely to Succeed.” Inspired by his desire to celebrate the outstanding achievements of youth in America, he launched the Wendy’s High School Heisman program.

 

Twenty-two years later, Wendy’s has honored more than 600,000 of the nation’s most esteemed high school seniors who share Wendy’s values of giving back to their communities, treating people with respect, continuing education and excelling on the athletic field.