It’s our privilege at Las Vegas Weekly to shine light on the remarkable acts of heroism, generosity, selflessness and community commitment exhibited by a younger generation.
Many of us have witnessed remarkable young people go above and beyond to help others and thought, “This should be recognized.”
Our High School Heroes awards program is doing just that.
This is the first year the Weekly and Las Vegas Sun—our sister publication at Greenspun Media Group—have hosted the High School Heroes show.
It’s a simple concept: Shine light on the heroic actions of a younger generation and allow them to inspire the community to follow suit.
This week, we present stories of Las Vegas’ young heroes. Enjoy.
Heroic Act of the Year
Justin Holman, Boulder City High School
Justin Holman had stopped riding his mini bike on this June afternoon in the desert behind Racetrack Road in Henderson to take in the sights. The 15-year-old often heads that way when the sun is about to set for the view of the Las Vegas skyline.
Holman glanced over to watch another rider, who suddenly had a nasty crash and flew about six feet in the air and landed on his head.
Holman, 14 at the time, raced over to find the boy unresponsive. He helped the child regain consciousness and assisted him back to his home. But Jesse Lopez, 16, was dazed and confused, and his family quickly transported him to University Medical Center.
Lopez suffered a concussion, had a broken collarbone, and lacerations in his kidneys and pancreas. If it weren’t for Holman springing into action, there’s no telling how long Lopez would have been alone in the Henderson desert.
Holman, a freshman at Boulder City High School, said his instincts took over when he saw Lopez in the air. “I went to check on him. That was a bad accident,” Holman said.
Lopez spent about one week in the hospital. His mother, Gina Aguirre, took to social media after he was released searching for the Good Samaritan who she said saved her son’s life.
The message quickly spread to the Holman family, said Tye Holman, Justin’s father.
Justin Holman told his father of the crash and how he brought the disorientated rider to safety. But, like all teens, Justin was light on details and downplayed his act of heroism. He’s a shy teenager who doesn’t desire the spotlight, his father said.
The Holmans are constantly working on “anything with an engine,” and their son learned riding safety at a young age, Tye Holman said. The family is proud of their son’s action and stresses that looking out for your fellow rider is a way of life.
The teens got together this summer for a reunion and the families remain in close contact.
“I’m glad Jesse is OK,” Justin says. “(At the time) I didn’t realize what I was doing was that big of a deal.”
Team Project of the Year
Ryan Arcana and Thalia Huygens, Bishop Gorman
Ryan Arcana and Thalia Huygens
Thalia Huygens, a senior at Bishop Gorman High School, walked into a meeting with officials from a local gaming company and couldn’t help but be nervous.
She was raising money for Student Visionaries of the Year, an entrepreneurship and project management campaign for high school students to fundraise for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
Huygens’ pitch worked.
Golden Entertainment made a $75,000 contribution, she said, helping a fundraising team led by Huygens and Gorman classmate, Ryan Arcana, raise$378,000 to aid cancer patients.
“It’s rewarding to see how we impacted the families (of cancer patients) and helped the community as a whole,” Huygens said.
The fundraising of the group Bucks for Battle led by the Gorman duo included contributions from 3,000 donors and ranked sixth nationally out of 1,050 teams. Teams in Nevada combined to raise $1,180,666, meaning the group led by Huygens and Arcana made up about 25% of the fundraising.
The project included spreading awareness through social media posts, writing letters to companies looking for support, holding meetings with student colleagues and plenty of long nights.
And, the teens say, it was well worth the effort.
The funds will help Las Vegas patients with their medical co-pays and travel assistance and to fund lifesaving, cutting-edge blood cancer research.
“It’s a good feeling knowing you can help families that are suffering,” Arcana, a high school junior, said.
Volunteer of the Year
Grace Netski, Faith Lutheran
Grace Netski, who serves as a lead for the Hope Means Nevada suicide prevention awareness organization, has a message for anyone dealing with mental health struggles: Your life is worth living.
Netski, a senior at Faith Lutheran, spends her free time volunteering in projects to help “kids, animals and rescues, the military, homeless, veterans, elderly and anyone in need,” said Melanie Bowline, an advisor at Faith Lutheran who nominated Netski.
But it’s her work in suicide prevention that she is most proud of.
Hope Means Nevada promotes messaging like “you are not alone,” and “it’s OK to not be OK.”
Netski has relayed those sentiments to teens in need and is hopeful that the group’s mentoring can provide inspiration to live hopeful lives.
At least 11 teens enrolled in Clark County School District schools died by suicide in the initial months of pandemic school closures in 2020, officials said.
There were 1.2 million suicide attempts in the United States in 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Netski finds value in helping her teen peers cope. She’s dedicated to helping lift stigmas associated with mental health struggles.
“I’ve always been drawn to helping those in need in my community,” Netski said.
Netski for the past two years has served as the Key Club president at Faith Lutheran, having a hand in planning many outreach events, such as community service projects for Ronald McDonald House Charities.
She has additionally served as an ambassador for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, plans community service projects at Ronald McDonald House Charities and led a crew of volunteers handing out supplies at the Las Vegas Marathon.
“Grace exudes serving from the heart,” Bowline said.
Best SOCIAL Impact
Maddy Hanlon-Oviatt, Palo Verde High School
One of Maddy Hanlon-Oviatt’s closest friends at Palo Verde High School is Jennifer. They were introduced through the Best Buddies program, which promotes one-on-one friendships between students with and without intellectual disabilities.
Hanlon-Oviatt, the group’s president, helped grow Palo Verde’s Best Buddies affiliate from 21 members to hundreds of students. The group was named the National Outstanding Chapter of the Year for 2024, beating out 1,100 other schools.
“My reward is the friendships. That’s what is most important,” she said.
Hanlon-Oviatt was matched with Jennifer two years ago. The friends exchange text messages, get together on weekends for a movie or for go-kart racing, and check on each other throughout the course of the school day. That, after all, is what being a friend is about.
Hanlon-Oviatt, according to a nomination from Palo Verde, “encourages our students in (special education) to learn how to use self-advocacy and set goals to gain independence.”
Thanks to the confidence gained from being paired with Hanlon-Oviatt, Jennifer is now a board member for Palo Verde’s chapter.
And when Hanlon-Oviatt represented Palo Verde in July at the Best Buddies leadership conference in Bloomington, Indiana, Jennifer accompanied her for the event.
“Maddy ensures that all students feel included and have a positive experience like Jennifer,” her nominators wrote.
Hanlon-Oviatt was nonverbal until first grade, eventually overcoming the speech difficulties with the support of her family. She said the experience helped develop an understanding of challenges faced by special needs students. It’s given her the determination to make a difference in advocating for inclusion.
“We foster one-on-one friendships and an inclusive environment,” she said. “Best Buddies is about creating friends, and those friends bringing (the best) out of you.”
Environmental Helper of the Year
Micah Feller, West Career & Technical Academy
Since his freshman year, Micah Feller has worked with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to bring back endangered fish species to the Colorado River.
It started with rainbow trout eggs, a 150-gallon water tank and a water cooling system. The equipment was used to hatch the eggs into baby trout, the senior at West Career & Technical Academy said.
Now, the aquaculture system has grown to a 700-gallon tank for 300 bonytail chub, the most endangered of the large river fish in the Colorado Basin watershed.
The school received the aquaculture system in the 2022-2023 school year and started raising bonytail chub the following year, Feller said.
He keeps the tank clean, feeds the fish, takes water quality tests and mentors students interested in the project.
“The bonytail chub is important to the ecosystem (because) they are a native species of the Colorado River,” Feller said. “Their population has been degraded to a point where they don’t have any sustaining populations in the wild.”
That is because dam construction has caused changes in migration routes and water quality, Feller said. The water temperature is also no longer ideal for the fish, he said.
“It’s a bit of a conundrum,” Feller said. “Dams are pretty much required for the power generation, but … a possible solution would be to not rely as much on (dams) for power and rely more on our solar farms …to access that energy and help produce more energy so that dams are less needed.”
When the fish are ready to be released into the Colorado River, they are taken to the Willow Beach hatchery.
Along with the aquaculture system, located at the school’s greenhouse, there is a display tank with three of the endangered fish species of the Colorado River, Feller said.
The display tank raises awareness about endangered species in the river. It includes the Colorado pikeminnow, razorback sucker and bonytail chub.
“We’ve shown the Department of Fish and Wildlife that we are responsible,” Feller said. “We can do this project.”
Cultural Advocate of YEAR
Katelyn Cambeiro, Bishop Gorman High School
Katelyn Cambeiro’s grandfather immigrated from Cuba to the United States and ultimately settled in Las Vegas.
One of the most difficult parts of the transition: Learning a new language.
Cambeiro, a Bishop Gorman senior, is determined to provide young immigrants coming to the country another tool for getting adjusted to their new home.
She is the co-founder and president of Empowering Immigrants, a nonprofit organization that launched during the pandemic to help Spanish-speaking students achieve proficiency in English. The group provides handmade flashcards to Clark County School District schools to help Spanish speaking students learn a new language.
Most of the schools the organization deals with are from underrepresented neighborhoods, she said.
“I am grateful that I have the opportunity to help and make a difference,” she said.
Empowering Immigrants later expanded by developing a smartphone app—LEAF, or Learning English in a Flash. It offers visual and audio elements to help students see and hear the words they are learning. The app was developed in part because of a $5,000 fellowship. The cards and app are free offerings.
Cambeiro’s grandfather constantly stressed to family members the importance of obtaining an education. For new residents of our community, that starts by gaining confidence in being able to communicate and understand what’s being taught, she said.
She has met with principals and teachers in the school district to advocate for equal access to education.
“Katelyn’s compassionate nature and innovative approach have positively impacted countless lives,” her nominators wrote.
Best Community Partner
Las Vegas Raiders
The Raiders hadn’t planned a game in Las Vegas. Yet owner Mark Davis saw the community his franchise was moving to struggling during the early stages of the pandemic in 2020 and couldn’t stand idly by on the sidelines.
The Raiders made a $500,000 donation to the Nevada Community Foundation to help eliminate meal debt for area children. When a family doesn’t qualify for free school meals for a child and doesn’t have the means to pay, a debt is placed in the family’s name. This donation covered that debt.
It’s one of the many contributions the Raiders have made in their five years of calling Las Vegas home, including many donations that have impacted students.
Take an initiative to provide back-to-school haircuts and styling for 600 students, setting them up for a confident start to the academic year. And there’s the annual holiday party for children from underserved communities and foster homes at Allegiant Stadium, where the youth participate in activities on the field, and receive a festive meal and gifts.
The Raiders players are involved in the charity, being active in initiatives such as Nevada Reading Week.
The franchise’s generosity extends into athletics, where they contributed at least $100,000 to high school football programs for much-needed equipment. Most of the work is done with teams from underrepresented neighborhoods.
The franchise also opens Allegiant Stadium for the state championship games at no charge, hosts girls flag football tournaments at its practice facility in Henderson and hosts a coach of the week program providing a $1,000 donation to the winning coach’s program.
Best Global Impact
Sara Franco Gutierrez, Veterans Tribute Career & Technical Academy
Sara Franco Gutierrez listened to a young patient’s symptoms, diagnosed the ailment and helped come up with treatment.
The patient lived in Nigeria and was attending a telehealth appointment with the 16-year-old Franco Gutierrez this summer as part of the Leadership Initiative’s Advanced Medical and Public Health Internship at Georgetown University. A licensed physician was part of the appointment.
The initiative paid for the treatment. Franco Gutierrez, citing privacy laws, couldn’t detail the aliment.
“It’s a life-changing feeling knowing I helped someone feel better,” she said.
Franco Gutierrez, who is part of the EMT magnet program at Veterans Tribute, aspires to be a doctor. She qualified for a public health internship by excelling in a Future Health Professionals—formerly Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA)—conference of Nevada teens in Reno.
“During Sara’s internship, she demonstrated a high level of professionalism and an impressive work ethic,” her nominator wrote. “Sara’s enthusiasm was evident along with her thoughtful contributions and her willingness to go the extra mile.”
Franco Gutierrez learned how to diagnose the four most common and deadliest diseases in the developing world, including malaria. She created a public health campaign to educate the community about malaria, raising awareness and potentially protecting countless lives.
A native of Colombia who came to Las Vegas in 2016, she aspires to study medicine because it can help save lives—especially for those who lack adequate care.
Franco Gutierrez says it best: “I want to make this world a better place.”
Best Volunteer Project
Kiran Talim, West Career & Technical Academy
Kiran Talim noticed a spike in misdemeanor crimes amongst her peers following closures brought on by the COVID pandemic and was inspired to help.
She coordinated with Metro Police to launch the DREAM program—“Discover, Redirect, Empower, Advocate and Mentor”—at the Summerlin Area Command station to help mentor at-risk youth.
Talim leads emotional support and empowerment sessions twice a week as part of the program. The peer-to-peer counseling is making an impact, she said.
“While Summerlin has a lot of resources, there was a void for at-risk youth,” she said.
Talim additionally collaborates with Metro to work with youth already convicted of crimes, hosting a three-month mentoriship program that’s helped 16 teens complete their probation, according to her nomination letter.
That project included coordinating with probation officers and those in the legal system, the letter said.
Her approach to working with troubled peers is to be “friendly and understanding,” she said.
Talim, on track to be the West Tech valedictorian, proudly says she’s never received a grade lower than an A. She plans to study medicine in college and aspires to become a surgeon.
She’ll never stop advocating for those in need—something working with at-risk youth has solidified.
Philanthropic High School of the Year
Clark High School
From left: Robert Chondro, Valerie Castellanos, Sile Smith, Olivia Hua and Hairmella Fiato
Clark High has a reputation of being a powerhouse academic school, consistently ranking in Newsweek’s list of the nation’s top performing high schools. Clark’s magnet program has received the Magnet Schools of America excellence award, reaffirming the school’s mission to inspire students for college readiness.
Part of the readiness, principal Zeola Braxton stresses, is learning the value of volunteering. There’s a link front and center on Clark’s website with volunteer opportunities—a list of about 25 on-campus clubs where students can make a difference.
In the 2023-24 school year, students amassed 2,581 hours of community service, Braxton said. Braxton says many of the students are so dedicated to serving that they bring classmates along with them.
“We work really hard to make sure everyone has an opportunity to be involved,” Braxton said. “A lot of the students are getting involved because they have that passion.”
Robert Chondro, a Clark senior, helped launch Giving to Kids, a student-led nonprofit that provides educational resources and necessities to children worldwide.
They hosted a fundraiser that brought in $25,000, enabling the group to donate $5,000 to University Medical Center to help families who couldn’t pay their children’s medical bills. And this summer, they traveled to Vietnam to provide support with thousands of dollars worth of school supplies to orphans.
“It’s very fulfilling,” Chondro said. “A bunch of kids have a better opportunity because of our efforts.”
Hairmella Faito, a Clark senior who was part of a group that provided holiday meals to the elderly, said the giving spirit at Clark is contagious with classmates.
“We have so many clubs that help the community. You see your friends involved and you want to be part of it, too,” she said.
Sile Smith, who was part of a group that helped with a cleanup of Springs Preserve, say some students perform community service because it’s a resume builder for college. However, many of his peers at Clark are involved for another reason: To make Las Vegas a better place.
“It’s great friendships,” Smith said. “You are part of something bigger than yourself.”
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