Three Mercer Island students received awards in the Washington State PTA Reflections arts program.

Lauren Pirak of Mercer Island High School received an Award of Excellence in Dance Choreography for her original dance, “Overcoming Adversity.” Sarah Wang of MIHS received an Award of Excellence in Music Composition for “Peony.” West Mercer student Sidh Shroff received an Award of Merit in Music Composition for “The World Around Me.”

A panel of experts selected the three submissions from among thousands of entries from schools across the state. Reflections offers students the opportunity to create original works of art in six areas: visual art, photography, literature, music composition, dance/choreography and film/video. The theme for the 2016-2017 school year was “What’s your Story?”

The Mercer Island PTA Council awarded Pirak, Wang and Shroff first place in the local competition.

“It is a great honor to know that three students from our district have been awarded prizes at the state level, and we are extremely proud to have such a talented group of students participating in the Reflections Art Competition,” said Jocelyn Barber, Reflections program chair for the Mercer Island PTA Council.

Congratulations to all the students who entered, and especially to the following who won their respective divisions and whose entries were forwarded to the Reflections State competition:

High school

Katherine Gelsey, Photography — “The Future is Within You”

Sarah Wang, Visual Arts — “Unity”

Ainsley O’Briant, Literature — “A voice in time”

Tyler Heydon, Film — “Memories Through my Lens”

Lauren Pirak, Dance Choreography — “Climbing Through Adversity”

Sarah Wang, Music Composition — “Peony”

Middle school

Walker Guerra, Film — “My Story”

Andrew Yeh, Music Comp — “Travelling in Tanzania”

Rachel Senn, Literature — “My story, my life”

Hunter Yetman, Photography — “Glowing Rain”

Ronan Holloway-Lamb, Visual Arts — “The First Night in Seattle”

Grades 3-5

Mari Jora Lavin, Dance Choreography — “Story of my Life”

Jan Kolczyk, Film — “My Story”

Madison Sieckhaus, Literature — “My Life”

Sidh Shroff, Music Comp — “The World Around Me”

Sydney Parcel, Photography — “Focused on Nature”

Chloe Simpson, Visual Arts — “My City”

Grades K-2

Karenna Stone, Dance Choreography — “Just Dancin”

Karenna Stone, Film Production — “A Greek Princess”

Ewan Lill, Literature — “The Story of Accessing my Port”

Karenna Stone, Photography — “Acorn Squirrels”

Jane Besecker, Visual Arts — “A Girl on a Rainy Day”

Keith Chung, Music Composition — “Sorry Witch Watch Out”