During a staff meeting on Aug. 13, the Kansas State High School Activities Association Executive Director, Bill Faflick and Assistant Executive Director, Megan Hagaman, joined administration for a surprise award presentation. They bestowed the KSHSAA Performing Arts School of Excellence award to Free State for the 2025-26 school year.
This award recognises and celebrates the top, all-around performing arts school in Kansas. This year marks the first time in the award’s seven year history that it has been given to the same school twice. Choir Director Joshua East said that the award is well deserved and representative of the work students and teachers across the department put in each and every day.
“I haven’t worked somewhere before where every single group within the performing arts is at such a high level, it’s pretty rare of a thing to happen,” East said.
The selection committee is made up of leaders from the Kansas Music Educators Association , Kansas Speech Communication Association , Kansas Thespians, and KSHSAA staff. The group collaborates to discuss schools who scored exceptionally well in choir, theatre, band, orchestra and Speech and Debate during the previous school year (2024-25). When presenting the award, Faflick emphasized that picking Free State was a unanimous decision.
Band Director, Eric Bradshaw, said that he feels hopeful that this award will encourage the USD497 district to continue their support of performing arts education and extracurriculars.
“[The award] shows that what we’re doing is being recognized, that we’re teaching at a high level, and that we have amazing students. So hopefully they [the district] would keep supporting that,” Bradshaw said.
While the award was presented to staff first, Choir Directors, Olivia Henning, East and Bradshaw agree that the award is a recognition of the work students do, in and outside of the classroom. Since the last award in the 2019-20 school year, the entire performing arts staff has changed. Henning said that the students’ continued excellence is what contributed most to this award.
Teachers and students involved in performing arts were recognized at the first home football game on Sep. 5. KSHSAA executives were in attendance to present the award and students gathered on the field for a group photo. Both awards will be housed in the commons.
