JAMESTOWN — Jadyn Hoecke loves to be creative. Painting, crafts with Popsicle sticks, working with yarn — name it and she does it well.
So it should come as no surprise that she was a local winner in the Lions Club International Peace Poster Contest which featured 25 Jamestown students.
Or should it?
“I was definitely shocked,” the Greeneview Middle School eighth-grader said. “(My classmates) had some really good posters. I thought one of them would definitely beat me.”
But hers was deemed to express the “Kindness Matters” theme the best among Greeneview students. She had two hands of different colors coming together to form a heart and various world flags around the border. Each wrist had a bracelet with a peace sign and there was a rising sun against a clear, blue sky.
“Really, really nicely done,” art teacher Kim Fitzsimmons said. “It’s kind of trickier than your average (contest).”
Artists were limited in that they could only draw and paint. Nothing could be glued, stapled or attached, words or numbers were allowed and it could not be three dimensional. The contest was open to anyone ages 11-13.
Using some sample posters as inspiration, Hoecke, 13, developed her idea and worked diligently in her art class each day for about a month. First she drew in pencil then she traced over with colors.
“I wanted to definitely have the two different nationalities,” she said. “Trying to come up with a way that (depicts) ‘it doesn’t matter if we’re different, that we can still make peace in the world and we’re all the same.’ The flags I thought made a nice border to my picture.”
Hoecke used markers and water colors to complete her project and will now have it submitted to a district competition comprising several schools in southwest Ohio. The top poster there goes on to a multi-district competition and then one winner moves on to the international competition where one grand prize winner will win $5,000 or the local equivalent. As the local winner, Hoecke will receive a cash prize and a certificate.
More than 450,000 entries were submitted worldwide. In addition to the grand prize winner, 23 merit award winners will each receive a certificate and a cash award of $500 or their country’s cash equivalent.
Just like for the local contest, Hoecke isn’t predicting success.
“There’s a chance, but I don’t think so,” she said. “But I also haven’t seen the other work that they’ve done.”
Fitzsimmons worked the contest into her seventh and eighth grade two-dimensional art class curriculum. Twenty students, plus five not in the class made posters.
“There were some other good ones,” she said. “I’ve got quite a few kids that really worked hard.”
Seventh grader Julia Leach was second and eighth grader Kaylee Klontz was third. Leach depicted two hands, one black and the other white, under a peace sign with a dove and the sun in the background. Klontz had a picture of the globe with various country flags forming a peace sign and doves flying above. The earth also had wings.
