The New Era - All about Sweet Home since 1929

Grand Prize Winners of the Smokey Bear Poster Contest show off their work with high school art students who painted roadside versions for display along local highways. The posters will be mounted in various locations before fire season officially starts, and the winners will be invited to ride on the U.S. Forest Service/Oregon Department of Forestry entry in the Sportsman’s Holiday Parade on July 13. At left are art student Addi Ingram and Hannah Sieminski of Foster, whose poster will be placed at Sunnyside Park on Quartzville Road; in the center are Gretchen Cooke, substitute art teacher at the high school and contest organizer Neil Miller of the Oregon Department of Forestry, with Alexis Combs of Oak Heights, whose poster will be placed at Shea Point on Highway 20, across from The Point restaurant; and at right are art student Ella Parker and winner Alexis Starkey, also of Oak Heights. Her poster will be placed on Upper Calapooia Road. Other top finishers from various fourth-grade classes in the district were Tayler Carr (second place), Hannah Nicholson (third), Dylan Lashley (second) and Payton Messmer (third) of Oak Heights; Lilah Adams (first), Emma Henson (second), Trevin Moore (third), Miu Simmons (second) and Victoria Jones (third) of Foster; and Sadie Weder (first), Aydrienne Elliott (first), Heaven Ader (second), Kaitlyn Kennedy (third), Rivers Taylor (second) and Aria Kopperud (third) of Hawthorne.