Congratulations to Brooke Myers on receiving the Emily Bohnsack Memorial IQHYA Youth Spirit Award and to our 2023 Nominees:
Sophia Garside
Karly Christensen
Kennedy Cheney

This award was created years ago to recognize the IQHYA Member who best exemplifies the spirit of a good IQHYA member – one who is kind, courteous, respectful, with sportsmanship and camaraderie for fellow members, one who is a good representative of IQHYA to the rest of the world.

The recipient is voted on by your peers – the members of IQHYA. Formerly a secret ballot vote held at the annual IQHYA meeting, this year we made a change to the format to allow nominations to be made and votes cast among the nominees. This allows the nominees to know they were nominated where the complete secret ballot vote never said who received votes.

Emily Bohnsack was an IQHYA member who was killed in a car accident in 2010. At that time, the members of IQHYA contacted her parents and asked for their blessing to name this award in Emily’s honor. They continue to support the award and I know it touches their hearts to know we remember Emily in this way.

Emily was a girl with a bubbly personality who loved her horse and loved showing with her friends. She was also a good student and athlete in school in southeast Iowa. She was only 16 when she was killed.

I always believed that Emily would have flourished in a leadership role within IQHYA had we not lost her. It saddens me that you kids now never got to know her and I’m thankful to be reminded of her each year when we present this award.

– Jennifer Horton, IQHYA Youth Advisor