News Leader Female Athlete of the Year: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the News Leader Female Athlete of the Year is and who runs it

The News Leader Female Athlete of the Year is a year-end honor for high school female athletes, organized by The News Leader, a Virginia newspaper whose online home is newsleader.com. Voting happens through Crowdsignal's poll.fm service; the ballot lives at https://poll.fm/17160211. Where the paper's weekly sports polls reset every few days, this award is decided on a single ballot devoted to the year's female athletes, which is what sets it apart immediately.

The 2026 ballot named nominees alongside their schools, drawing from Buffalo Gap, Stuarts Draft, Fort Defiance, Riverheads, Wilson Memorial, Waynesboro and Staunton. Because Crowdsignal athlete polls put real students on the ballot, this page describes nominees by school and community only, never by name; the live ballot carries the names themselves.

That combination, a newspaper organizer, a year-end award and a June ballot, is the contrast with the weekly programs Virginia readers also follow, and it explains why the supporter playbook here looks different from a player-of-the-week push.

The dated history: 2022, 2026 and the June window

Confirmed editions of the award run in 2022 and 2026. The 2026 ballot opened and closed within June, and the poll now displays a closed status on poll.fm. 2027 is when the next edition should arrive, though The News Leader has not printed a calendar date for it.

The newspaper has not published the ballot's exact opening and closing dates, a per-supporter vote rule, or an eligibility list; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

Whether editions ran in the years between 2022 and 2026 is not published either, so treat the run as confirmed where evidence exists and expect a June shape for the rest. No category list appears beyond the award itself, and no nomination round is described anywhere on the ballot.

For supporters planning ahead, the practical read is simple: the window landed in June in the edition now confirmed for 2026, and the paper's sports coverage is where an announcement would surface. Checking newsleader.com late in the school year beats guessing a date, since the ballot itself carries no dates between editions.

How a supporter votes on the poll.fm ballot

When the ballot is open, voting is short. A supporter opens https://poll.fm/17160211, reads the nominee list where each athlete appears with her school, selects the name worth supporting, and submits the vote. Crowdsignal registers the choice on the News Leader's ballot and the page updates; what confirmation looks like on this poll, and whether a supporter may return the next day, is not stated anywhere on it.

Several practical points follow from the ballot's shape. The window is tight, with a 2026 run that shut inside June, so late shares reach fewer people than early ones. The paper fixes the nominee list, so support goes to a named nominee rather than a write-in box. And the poll is free to vote in, with no login step shown on the ballot page.

Because nominees are tied to schools, the natural audience for each push is that school's own community: students, teammates, families and local followers with a standing interest in the result.

If the poll shows closed, as the 2026 ballot does now, the vote button is done for the year; the next chance arrives with the paper's next edition, expected in 2027.

How this ballot sits beside Virginia's other player-of-the-year polls

The sibling programs on this site, all in Virginia high school sport, include a baseball player of the week poll, boys basketball honors at both weekly and year-end scale (weekly, player of the year), a football player of the week series run with the Roanoke Times / Timesland, a football player of the year award, and a girls basketball player of the year award.

This ballot differs from those neighbors in organizer, scope and shape: it is run by The News Leader rather than the publishers behind the football program, it covers female athletes across sports rather than a sport's boys sides, and it runs as a year-end award in June instead of a weekly series through a season.

The 2026 final standings show how tight the vote was: the leading nominee, from Buffalo Gap, finished at 31% with 15,047 votes; the runner-up, from Stuarts Draft, took 15% with 7,287 votes; and a second Buffalo Gap nominee placed third at 14% with 6,608 votes. Names and full percentages appear on the closed ballot at poll.fm.

For a supporter deciding where to spend attention, the difference matters: a weekly poll rewards fast, repeated mobilization, while this award concentrates a whole community's effort into a June sprint.

Building support before the June window closes

Support in this program is a June sprint, not a season-long grind. The ballot lists fixed nominees, so the work is mobilizing a school's community, teammates, families, alumni groups, toward a single nominee before the poll closes. The News Leader has published no statement on outside voting help, so nothing on the ballot tells a supporter where the organizer draws the line; the live ballot and the paper's own coverage are the only authority on that.

A poll of this size rewards early, broad mobilization over a last-day push, because the tally is already large by the time most people notice it. For methods that fit a short-window public vote, see how to get more votes online, and for award-style ballots specifically, the award votes overview explains the wider category.