The Killeen ISD community gave a heartfelt thank-you to some of its biggest fans and supporters Thursday during the annual volunteer awards luncheon at the Killeen Civic and Conference Center.
The district honored schools with the most reported volunteer hours as well as top individual volunteers during the school year.
The school with the most volunteer hours was Patterson Middle School with 7,886 hours of volunteer service in 2025-2026.
Chaparral High School earned the top mark among high schools with 5,559 hours and Meadows Elementary School was the highest among elementary campuses with 2,962 hours.
The top Fort Hood adopt-a-school unit was the Sergeant Audie Murphy Club with 250 hours accumulated at Audie Murphy Middle School.
Adult volunteers of the year included Yasmin Vargas (738 hours at Venable Village Elementary), Jennifer Demings (450 hours at Audie Murphy Middle School) and Denise Newson (142 hours at Chaparral High School).
In the senior adult category, honorees included Carmen Nieves (319 hours at Fowler Elementary), Delores Holmes (133 hours at Audie Murphy) and Debra Robinson (21 hours at Early College High School).
The Helping Hand volunteers of the year chosen by nomination were Peter Mejia at Fowler, Angelic Lomeli at Brookhaven, Jenise Wright at Patterson and Charles Armstead at Killeen High.
Andrea Dykes, KISD’s coordinator for volunteers, praised the honorees and urged them to tell their stories to family and friends to help encourage others to give time to help students and teachers.
One of the Helping Hand winners, Wright, a retired KISD educator said it was her granddaughters at Patterson Middle School who urged her to volunteer on their campus.
The experience, she said, helped her grieve the loss of the school community she missed as a retiree while allowing her a chance to give back to the community and spend time with her granddaughters.
The former educator mentors four girls at Patterson. “When we met for the last time this school year, one of the girls said, ‘I just love you,’ and I said, ‘I love you, too.’” She also helps in the cafeteria and in other capacities at the school.
Gladys Fontanez, parent liaison at Chaparral High School, was excited to see the four-year-old school honored for its volunteer hours.
“I am there to support, but it’s all about the volunteers. They put in all the hours,” she said, noting the time spent assisting at athletic events, in the library and all across the large, active campus is a great help to the staff and an encouragement to students.
To end the event, Dykes presented a ceremonial check to Superintendent King Davis that spelled out the number of volunteers, hours and estimated monetary value of the time given.
A total of 11,093 volunteers recorded 48,838 hours during the school year. Using the amount KISD pays tutors, that equals $976,760.
After hearing volunteers’ testimonies and helping to distribute awards, the superintendent said he found the event restoring.
“Those volunteers, they didn’t have to,” he said. “That’s what’s so beautiful about this. You didn’t have to, you chose to. This is exciting. I continue to tell everybody great things are happening in KISD.”
Killeen ISD photo albums: https://www.killeenisd.org/photos