Pastor of the Year: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the HERO Pastor of the Year award is and who runs it

Pastor of the Year is an award program run by HERO, the Heartland Education Reformation Organization, a Kansas ministry organization whose stated mission is to form partnerships between churches and Christian educators in order to have a greater impact with families in their congregation and community. The award celebrates a pastor who champions education: the ballot invites supporters to nominate a Kansas pastor whose leadership lifts students, families, and schools.

HERO hosts the program on its own website, and the ballot lives at heartlandhero.org under the pastor-of-the-year address. That hosting choice matters for supporters, because every phase of the season, from the nomination form to the public vote, happens on pages the organizer controls directly, with no outside contest platform sitting between the supporter and the ballot.

The program belongs to the community-recognition tradition of public balloting, but its subject is unusual. Instead of restaurants, shops, or services, the nominee pool is pastors across Kansas whose work touches education. That focus ties the award directly to HERO's broader purpose of connecting congregations with schools, and it defines who the natural voting audience is.

For readers comparing Kansas recognition programs, this page sits alongside general best-of ballots run by other publishers, which cover whole markets rather than a faith-and-education award. The table below gathers the facts a supporter needs before nominating or voting. Everything here comes from HERO's own published ballot page; where HERO has not printed a detail, the page says so plainly rather than guessing.

The dated record: nominations, finalists, voting, and the winner reveal

HERO's ballot page lays out the cycle in dated phases. Nominations are free and open until Saturday, November 1. Finalists are announced on Monday, November 17. Public voting runs November 23 to 30, and the winner is revealed on December 22. Those four dates are the fixed spine of the season.

The 2025 cycle followed this same shape: the page describes the public voting online to help choose the 2025 HERO Pastor of the Year, with the winner announced in December. Confirmed edition years for the program are 2025 and 2026, which is why it is treated here as an annual program rather than a single event. A next cycle would be expected in 2027, though HERO announces each phase across its own channels as the season approaches rather than publishing a full forward calendar.

What the ballot page does not print is the fine print around the vote itself. HERO has not published the list of categories that appear on the ballot, nor any per-supporter limit or eligibility wording; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. Because the award honors a clearly defined nominee, a Kansas pastor, that gap is narrower than it would be on a multi-category ballot, but the exact form fields, the finalist count, and the voting rules are all things HERO controls and may adjust between cycles.

Treat the four published dates as the reliable part of the plan and treat everything else as subject to the live page. If HERO revises a phase, the change appears on the ballot page and across the organizer's channels first.

How a supporter nominates and votes on HERO's ballot

Supporting a nominee takes separate actions at separate points in the season. During the nomination phase, which closes on November 1, a supporter submits the form on HERO's site, naming a Kansas pastor and describing how that pastor's leadership lifts students, families, and schools. The form is free, and HERO's page notes that nominations are open now through the deadline.

Once finalists are named on November 17, the second action begins. Public voting opens November 23 and runs through November 30, entirely online at heartlandhero.org. A supporter visits the Pastor of the Year page during that window, finds the finalist ballot, and casts a vote for the pastor they back. No account creation, login, or payment is described on the ballot page; the vote is a plain public action on the organizer's own domain.

Because the ballot lives on HERO's site rather than a contest platform, supporters should reach it by typing the address directly or following a link HERO publishes, rather than relying on search results that may point at an older cycle's page. That habit also protects supporters from lookalike pages during the busy voting week.

If a supporter wants to vote again on a later day of the window, the page does not state whether repeat votes are allowed; that rule sits with HERO and shows up on the live ballot. The winner reveal on December 22 closes the season, and HERO celebrates the result across its channels.

Where this ballot sits among Kansas recognition programs

Kansas readers meet this ballot in a crowded field of recognition programs, and it helps to see where Pastor of the Year differs. The state's best-known community ballots are general interest: Best of Johnson County, Best of Lawrence, and Best of Wichita each ask readers to pick favorites across many business and service categories, while CommunityVotes Overland Park and CommunityVotes Topeka run similar city-level formats, and Best of KC (Kansas City Magazine) adds a magazine publisher's editorial frame. All of those are separate programs with separate publishers, and a vote cast on a single ballot has no effect on the others.

Pastor of the Year stands apart in several ways. Its publisher is a ministry organization, HERO, rather than a media company or a contest platform. Its nominee class is defined by vocation and theme: a Kansas pastor whose leadership lifts students, families, and schools. And its season is anchored to late fall and early winter, with the winner revealed on December 22, where many best-of ballots cluster their voting in other parts of the year.

Anyone weighing where to direct their attention should note the practical consequence: this ballot needs faith-community networks rather than general shopper traffic. Congregations, Christian educators, and school families are the natural audience, which is exactly the partnership HERO's mission describes. Readers who want the broader Kansas picture can follow the sibling programs listed at the bottom of this page, each of which answers to a different publisher on a different calendar.

Strengthening support for a nominee in HERO's award

Because this ballot's audience is the faith and education community HERO already serves, effective support looks different from a generic get-out-the-vote push. A pastor's strongest asset is a congregation that knows the work being nominated: an announcement from the pulpit, a mention in the church newsletter, or a note through a school parent group reaches exactly the people the award is about, and those people have a reason to vote that goes beyond the ballot itself.

Timing matters as well, since the public voting window of November 23 to 30 is short. A plan that waits until the final days leaves little room for reminders, so supporters who care about a nominee should map their announcements against the finalist announcement on November 17 and the window that follows.

HERO has not published rules about organized voting help on its ballot page, so anyone considering outside support should read the organizer's terms on the live ballot first and review the general background in our guide on earning more online votes and our page on whether buying votes is legal. No service of any kind can guarantee a win in HERO's award; the ballot and the organizer's rules decide the outcome, and the winner is revealed on December 22.