Essex Students Creations Selected for the 2022- 2023 Choose IOWA Coloring Calendar
Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig encourages school-age students to participate in the Choose Iowa Calendar Contest hosted by the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship.
The artwork should feature at least one aspect of Iowa agriculture — food, livestock, crops or renewable fuels. Submissions will be judged on creativity and the ability to connect agriculture to everyday life.
Two students were selected from across the state of Iowa from Essex. Richard Tunnell and Cindy Swain entered the contest with their art work created in Mrs. Peterson’s Computer Graphics class last spring. Richard created a coloring page highlighting Iowa as the number one producer of eggs in the United States and Cindy focused on Iowa’s production of 8.4 million turkeys each year.
Richard and Cindy were among the winning artists honored by Secretary Naig during the award ceremony held at the Iowa State Fair in the Agriculture Building on Tuesday, August 16th.
After receiving the honor Cindy said, "I was very surprised because it had been a while since I had drawn the picture. I was busy with summer but contacted by email saying I had won!" I was happy and the experience at the state fair was really cool. I got to spend the entire day there and received a certificate award and coupons for free items at the fair. I also was able to autograph the calendar of the IA Secretary of Agriculture which made me feel very honored and happy!"
Richard said, “I enjoyed getting to attend the state fair and sample some of the food as part of the award. It was cool that I was one of the students chosen out of all the entries. It was really fun to do it because I got to use the pad for the computer and use photoshop. It was cool that one of my classmates got the award as well!”
To see Richard’s, Cindy’s and other Iowa students artwork the Choose Iowa calendar is available online at ChooseIowa.com.
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