For a dozen years now, a baker’s dozen pieces of art — one for each numbered grade in school representing each month of the year along with a kindergartner’s cover — has been picked in an Indiana student art contest sponsored by Electric Consumer and participating electric cooperatives. The spray is displayed in the annual Cooperative Calendar of Student Art.

The winning works for the 2010 wall calendar have been selected. And as in the previous years, this year’s group illustrates not just that Indiana is filled with budding young artistic talent but that much of that young talent is already blooming.

Among this year’s cash-prize winning group are a couple of previous winners, students from some schools and art teachers with impressive past laurels, and the first eighth grade “Artist of the Year” in the contest’s 12 years.

Mikala Greenlee, an eighth grader at Hauser Jr.-Sr. High School in Hope, earned the top honor in the contest with her “Best of Show” oil painting of a Yorkshire Terrier puppy for the month of August (here’s a link to that story).

Other winners of note: Last year’s third grade winner, Brooks Walker, returns this year as the fourth grader winner. He’s instructed in art by his mom, Joni, and lives in Columbia City. Meanwhile, Attie Schuler, who won an honorable mention in first grade, won the third grade division this year. She, too, is taught art by her mom, Kelly, and now joins a sister and a brother who were first place winners in previous years. The Schulers are from North Manchester and are Wabash County REMC consumers.

Also, the students of Walter Malicki at South Whitley High School, fulfilled his goal, he said, by having a student win for the 10th consecutive year. That goal was achieved by William Graves, who won the senior grade division, and William’s sister, Danielle, a freshman, who won an honorable mention.

In addition, three first places and two honorable mentions were won by students of C.J. Fang who has a private art studio in West Lafayette. Her students have seen great success in the contest, especially in recent years. Paoli High School and Northfield High School in Wabash also notched up continued contest success.

Judged in late March by Electric Consumer editors and three outside judges, the contest brought in over 2,800 original works of art this years from all grades, kindergarten-12, from all over Indiana.

For the contest, each numbered grade was once again assigned to illustrate the correlating month of the year: January, first grade; February, second grade; and so on. Kindergartners were encouraged to create art for the highly-visible cover position in the printed wall calendar. Winners from each grade will be used to illustrate the given month.

Cash prizes were: $150 for grade division winners kindergarten through 8; $200 for 9-12; and $50 for honorable mention winners.

The calendar, which will also contain electric co-op information, will be available at participating REMCs/RECs around the state in early autumn.

And the winners are …

1st Grade-January Heather Luo, West Lafayette, Ind.	2nd Grade-February Cierra Williams, Sunman, Ind.	3rd Grade-March Attie Schuler, North Manchester, Ind.
4th Grade-April Brooks Walker, Columbia City, Ind.	5th Grade-May Justin Ni, West Lafayette, Ind.	6th Grade-June Brittney Ley, Avilla, Ind.
7th Grade-July Amy He, West Lafayette, Ind.	8th Grade-August* Mikala Greenlee, Hope, Ind.	9th Grade-September Hannah Bright, Lagro, Ind.
10th Grade-October Stephanie Schleining, Wabash, Ind.	11tht Grade-November Joe Kintz, Paoli, Ind.	12th Grade-December William Graves, South Whitley, Ind.

Nine additional artists win honorable mentions

In addition to the 13 first place winners pictured above, the works of nine additional students earned an honorable mention and will appear in a special section of the 2010 calendar.

Honorable Mention winners were:
Zackary Reel, 12th grade, Hope, Ind;
Danielle Graves, ninth grade, South Whitley, Ind;
Jason Yoder, eighth grade, Freedom, Ind;
Krystyn Flynn, fifth grade, Crawfordsville, Ind;
Ethan Gaskin, fifth grade, Indianapolis, Ind;
Madison Masood, fifth grade, West Lafayette, Ind;
Shayleigh Shriver, second grade, Rochester, Ind;
Sophie Chang, second grade, West Lafayette, Ind;
Dane Dillman, kindergarten, Tippecanoe, Ind.

Over 400 “Award of Merit” certificates will be distributed to other students whose work was accepted into the final round of judging in their respective grade divisions.