Students from kindergarten to seniors in high school had the opportunity to express themselves through art — and to be recognized through the annual PTA-sponsored “Reflections” Art contest for Washington state public school students.
The young artists were honored for their work at an awards ceremony held at Mercer Island High School on Monday night.
Every year, the Washington State PTA and National PTA encourage students to participate in “Reflections,” a multi-discipline art competition.
Students can express themselves through literature, photography, visual art, music composition, dance choreography or film.
They compete in four levels: kindergarten through second grade; intermediate, which includes third through fifth-graders; middle school, which is grades six through eight; and high school, or grades nine through 12.
Carol Danielson, overall chairperson for Mercer Island schools, said that the first-place winner in each grade group, in each category or discipline, will move forward to the state competition.
This year there were 141 entries from Mercer Island.
“Our school district does a much better job of awarding prizes,” Danielson said. She said first through third place all receive medals, and others will receive honorable mention.
The theme this year was “Together We Can.” The work that the student presented should have had something to do with the theme, she said.
The winners at state go on to the national competition.
The Mercer Island winners are as follows. Visual arts, grades K-2: first place, Samantha Bannach; second place, Kaisa Olson; and third place, Kaya Jaecks. For grades 3-5: first place, Sanjna Narrayan; second place, Oliver Lee; and third place, Mallory Nichol. In grades 6-8: first place, Victoria Yeh; second place, Maeve O’Briant; and third place, Chris Wang. In the senior division, first place was awarded to Mina So, second place to Minjung Cheung and third place to Alexandra Jones.
In photography grades K-2, first place went to Kaya Jaecks and second place to Gabe Gottesman. In grades 3-5, first place was awarded to Christoph Schmidt-Warnecke, second place to Owen Bernstein and third place to Andrew Motz. In grades 6-8, first place went to Dylan Ma, second place to Elizabeth Bernstein and third place to Ren Jaecks. In the senior division, Max Goetchel cleaned up with first, second and third prizes.
In the literature category, grades K-2, first place went to Nicole Gearhart, second to Anders Larson and third place to Madeline Allison. In grades 3-5, first place was awarded to Vi Le with second place going to Noonie McCann. In the senior division, first place in literature went to Alisa Jion Kim with second to Max Goetschel.
In musical composition, grades K-2, first place was awarded to Peyton Mitchell, second to Hannah Zhao and third to Sarah Fredrickson.
For grades 3-5, first place went to Sophia Chen, second place to Sophie Feldman and third place to Kari Anderson. In the grade 6-8 division, first place was awarded to Bryan Zhao. In the senior division, first place went to Christina Sun with second place going to Max Goetschel.
Finally, in film, grades 3-5, Zack Gottesman was given a second place award. In grades 6-8, first place was given to Barry Briggs and second to Kylie Quinn.
There were no entries in choreography this year.
