Waller Junior High Students Earn Art Awards
Four Waller Junior High (WJH) students were awarded honors in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. The program is the nation’s longest-running and most prestigious scholarship and recognition program for creative teens in grades 7-12. Students are judged on a regional level and advance to national judging. In 2019, nearly 340,000 works of art and writing were submitted nationwide.
Art Teacher Savannah Nichols decided to have WJH students participate in the Scholastic Awards for the first time. She spent approximately three weeks teaching photography where she focused on composition, time of day, and lighting. During this time students created the pieces that would be submitted for the awards. In total, Nichols submitted 11 pieces and four were chosen for regional recognition. Images were judged on originality, technical skill, and the emergence of a personal vision. Congratulations to award winners:
Gold Key
- Dalia Zamora, Unrevealed
Silver Key
- Brady Shivers, The Lawful Look Into the Scope
- Alexandra Cisneros, In the Void of Today, and Caught in the Moment of Victory
Honorable Mention
- Jaleaha Joseph, Illuminating Pedestrian
In the Houston Region there were over 7,000 entries from public, private, and home schools. Only 71 students were awarded silver keys and 52 were awarded gold keys. Key recipients were invited to attend an awards ceremony at the Ballroom at Bayou Place where they were presented with key pins, certificates, and their artworks were displayed in a gallery at Texas Art Supply. Zamora, being a Gold Key winner, moved on to national judging.
“I am very proud of my students who took a chance to be creative with this photography lesson,” Nichols said. “This just shows them that not everything is about earning a grade but having a creative voice to share even outside of the district. I love to see them shine!”