Students Earn Top Awards In State Reflections Contest

Riley Geyer's first place piece of art for the PTA Reflections state contest.

The Lakewood Council of PTAs Reflection Committee recently announced that four of its submissions for judging at the state level earned recognition for further artistic merit. In the high school visual arts category, senior Riley Geyer won first place, which qualifies her piece to move on to national judging. Garfield Middle School student Nora Germaine earned a second place in the state in the middle school visual arts category.

Also receiving recognition were seniors Anna Rigdon and Claire Schuppel in the literature category and senior Lillith Horschke in the visual arts category. All three earned an Honorable Mention.

Out of thousands of pieces of artwork submitted for state judging, only six students were recognized in each age level/category.

The Reflections program offers students from schools with active PTAs the opportunity to create works of art for fun and recognition. Students in preschool through grade 12 are encouraged to submit works in seven arts areas: literature, dance choreography, film/video production, musical composition, photography, visual arts and special artist. All entries must follow a chosen theme, which this year was “Heroes Around Me.”

Each school with a PTA can send up to 24 entries to the district level judging. Among works chosen for district-level recognition, the highest scoring 28 works as deemed by a panel of nine judges evaluating on artistic merit, creativity and interpretation of the theme, moved on to Columbus to compete with students’ work from around the state.