COURAGE by Zoe Fanning, St. Clare Middle School, Portland, was the Grand Prize Art Winner in this year’s Sala Kryszek Art and Writing Contest of the Oregon Holocaust Resource Center. Fanning was also the grand prize winner for her writing entry, One Word Can Change a Life.
Each year the Oregon Holocaust Resource Center sponsors an art and writing contest named in honor of Sala Kryszek, a Holocaust survivor who immigrated to Portland, where she lived until her death in 1986. The objectives of the competition are to encourage today’s youth to evaluate history; foster an awareness of the Holocaust; broaden their minds in the areas of art, history, civics, sociology and literature; and to connect the Holocaust to events in today’s world.
The prompt for this year’s contest was: Create a piece of writing or a work of art which through its message will enable readers and/or viewers to understand that the courage to act in the face of injustice, even at great personal risk, is a choice open to each of us.
This year, Zoe Fanning of Portland’s St. Clare Middle School was the grand prize winner in both the writing and art contests.
St. Clare also had the top three students in the middle school art competition: 1st, Cav Lefor, Courage; 2nd, Isabel Trily, Speak Your Voice; and 3rd, Lauren Covell, Believe. Honorable mention was Margot Flynn, Faces of Courage, from St. Ignatius School.
High school art winners were: 1st, Michelle Coblens, Hidden Instincts, Westview High School; 2nd, Kalila Fuller, The Joker, Lake Oswego High School; 3rd, Lexie Yadon, Do You Know What’s Happening on the Other Side of Your Perfect World? Clackamas High School; and honorable mention: Tina Smith, Overcome, Ft. Vancouver High School.
Middle school writing winners were: 1st, Blaise Johnson-Stevens, Letters, St. Clare School; 2nd, Lindsey Orr, What Did We Do Wrong? Mark Twain Middle School; 3rd, Miriam Barnes, Courage to Act, St. Ignatius School; and honorable mention, Ally Schmidt, Timid Choices, Mark Twain Middle School.
High school writing winners were: 1st, Felicia Nguyen, Reason for Change, Clackamas High School; 2nd, Mary Reitmann, When Faced with the Choice, Choose to be Courageous, Ione High School; 3rd, Christine Trinh, Broken, De La Salle North Catholic High School; and four honorable mentions: Karen Garcia, The Pathways of Life, Culver High School; Makenna Ridenour, Choices, and Mikalah Ball, Survivor, both of St. Helens High School; and Alicia Dougherty, Dear Graduates, Ft. Vancouver High School.
Winners will be honored at 11 am, May 6 at the Multnomah Athletic Club. Tickets ($15) for the luncheon are available from the OHRC, 503-245-2733 or info@ohrconline.org.
