Shawnee Mission East golfer wins girls Kenneth Smith Award as tops in KC for 2025
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- Ella Slicker won the 2025–26 Kenneth Smith Award as top Kansas City female golfer.
- She posted nine fall starts with five wins, two state titles and dominant scoring.
- Foundation awarded $5,000 to First Tee of Greater Kansas City in her honor.
Ella Slicker of Shawnee Mission East on Wednesday won the Kenneth Smith Award as the top female high school golfer in the Kansas City metro for the 2025-26 school year.
The award is sponsored by the Kenneth L. and Eva S. Smith Foundation and given annually to the area’s top male and female high school golfers. The boys Kenneth Smith Award is presented each spring at the conclusion of the boys high school golf season.
Claire Sullivan of Olathe Northwest won the 2024-25 girls award, while Liberty North’s Caden Mickelson earned the 2024-25 honor for the boys.
As for two-time state champion Slicker, she will attend Colorado State on a golf scholarship in 2026 after four years as a starter on the Shawnee Mission East team.
She played in nine events for the Lancers this fall, finishing first five times and second four times. She capped the season with her second Kansas Class 6A championship, firing a 3-under 68 on the course in Hesston, Kansas, seven strokes ahead of the runner-up.
Slicker won her first state championship in 2022 before finishing third as a sophomore and fourth as a junior. Her first-year effort proved an especially tough act to follow, as she turned in the first unbeaten season in Kansas 6A history.
Academically, Slicker has a cumulative 3.8 grade-point average (GPA) on a 4.0 scale (or 4.17 on a weighted scale). She’s made the SM East honor roll every semester and is a member of the National Honor Society but also finds time to volunteer in various capacities.
“Ella is one of the best golfers in the Kansas City area, an exceptional student and an active member of our community,” her coach at Shawnee Mission East, Ben Hendrick, said in a news release about the Kenneth Smith Award. “She exemplifies everything we value as a student athlete.”
Kenneth Smith Award nominees, submitted by golf coaches and athletics directors, are judged in four areas: performance in high school golf tournaments, academic achievement, leadership on the golf team and in other aspects of school and community service through school, church or other activities.
In recognition of the winner’s achievements, the Kenneth L. and Eva S. Smith Foundation is contributing $5,000 to First Tee of Greater Kansas City to support cutting-edge child-development programs.