‘All my life’s a circle …,” the late singer/songwriter Harry Chapin used to leave his audiences singing. “The season’s spinnin’ round again, the years keep rollin’ by …”

As the calendar pages of 2017 begin turning, the names of student winners in the recently completed cooperative student art contest or the schools from where they come should have a familiar ring, at least more than in most years.

The Electric Consumer/Indiana electric cooperatives’ annual contest was judged March 24 at the Electric Consumer office in Indianapolis. The winning works will illustrate the cover of next year’s cooperative calendar and the 12 months inside. The honorable mention winners will appear in a special section in the back of the calendar. (The 2017 winning works are now posted in our Gallery of Art.)

As in past years, each grade was assigned a specific month to illustrate. First graders had January, second graders had February, and so on through high school seniors illustrating December.

Almost 3,200 entries from all over the state came into our office. The number of entries was up almost 1,400 from last year. Highlights or notes of interest from the 2017 winning works include:

• Nine of the 22 first place or honorable mention winners this year won first or an honorable mention in previous years, a record number of returning winners.

• The first three winners from last year’s calendar — kindergarten, first and second — repeated this year, winning the first, second and third grade divisions. That’s never happened before.

• Whitko High School in South Whitley, which has had at least one winner every year since 2001 except last year, had five winners this year, a record for any one school. Whitko students won the ninth, 11th and 12th grade divisions, and a 10th grader and a ninth grader each earned an honorable mention.

• The “Best of Show” winner, Attie Schuler, a sophomore, won her grade division for the second time. She previously won her grade division as a third grader in the 2010 calendar. She continued entering every year in between. That’s the largest span of years between any repeat winner’s first place awards. (Please see the feature on Attie — and her artistic family.)

• Evan Olinger, this year’s eighth grade winner who was Artist of the Year last year, and Evelyn Abrams, this year’s third grade winner, became only the fourth and fifth students in the contest’s 19 years to win their grade division three consecutive times.

• Other repeat winners were the fifth grade winner, Yianna Seibold; seventh grade winner, Danielle Sommerman; and honorable mention winners junior Laurabeth Landis and eighth grader Emma Schroeder.

• While Electric Consumer can’t be sure, it’s believed second grade Award of Merit winner Kaelyn Fluhr of Martinsville and her fourth grade sister Alaina might be the first participants with a parent who was a contest winner. Their dad, Zachary Fluhr, won Best of Show as a high school junior way back in the 2003 calendar.

The 2017 calendar will be made available by participating electric cooperatives around the state and Electric Consumer in early autumn.

First place winners received $200 each; honorable mention winners received $50. The Best of Show winner, Attie Schuler, received an additional $100. More than 300 other students will receive “Award of Merit” certificates indicating their works advanced to the final round of judging.

Indiana’s electric co-ops will once again team up with Hoosier Salon, the distinguished organization of Indiana artists, galleries and patrons, to host the winning students at a reception. In conjunction with the Salon’s annual exhibition in July, the reception will be held at The Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center in downtown Indianapolis.

The center is an appropriate place to honor upcoming artists — as the calendars and years keep rolling by.