17-03-2025
CI Hero: Stark Co. senior up for IHSA award for service
STARK COUNTY, Ill. (WMBD) — A Stark County high schooler didn't refrain from stepping up to lead her school's music classes when the district lost its teacher. Lauren Best is this week's CI Hero.
'Sometimes your mentor is someone who's been in your field for a million years and sometimes your mentor ends up being a 16-year-old and that's just how it turns out sometimes,' said Music Director Sophia Elswick.
Best stepped up her junior year, along with a group of friends, to fill a void when the music director quit. She helped current music director, Sophia Elswick, transition into the program when she accepted the role in early 2024. She said music is her passion and she felt compelled to keep that experience for other students.
'I've made some of my best friends in music and it's really important to me that I get to be in a community with these people,' said senior Lauren Best. 'I've been a leader for the junior high recently and it's been really cool because I get to be their role model and they're really fun to hang out with.'
Music moves Best, but so does education. She's graduating in the spring with her associate's degree and is up for valedictorian. Outside of her studies she's just as active.
'I'm on my robotics team through first robotics competition and I use my leadership skills there and my communication,' said Best. 'I'm also in a lot of music ensembles. At my church I play piano a couple times a month for offertory.'
'She got her Girl Scout Gold Award for a project she did in my room in helping me digitize all 5,000 titles of sheet music,' said Elswick.
All this work led the IHSA to nominate her for the National federation of State High School Associations Heart of the Arts Award.
'It was really good for me to learn leadership skills because I am pretty quiet overall,' said Best. 'It took a while for me to learn how to be a leader and communicate well.'
Elswick said Best is a student who's left an imprint on her heart and her teaching career.
'I am so grateful that our paths crossed in this way and to have her as one of my first students has been such an honor,' said Elswick.
In the fall, Best will study industrial engineering at Iowa State University.
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