Featured sitewide content in specific categories

Hi, I as admin would like to feature content from any post in the network on the main blog and I see there are widgets that do this but how can I have certain content featured under a different widget or specific category?

For example show under “Admin favorites” or choose to show under ” Must reads”.

If I use the same widget and rename it, chosen posts will go to both. There are enough widgets like this to use different ones plus the selection method will get messy.
These may have to be network categories that only admins can assign to any users post to but how?