PEA RIDGE — Young artists from Pea Ridge schools posted five winning entries in the Northwest Arkansas Art Educators Regional Competition and Exhibition currently on display in Fayetteville.

The art show displays the best artwork from schools in the 10 county northwest Arkansas region. Teachers from the more than 200 schools in the region submitted entries last week with results just recently being released. The counties comprising the Northwest Arkansas Region are Benton, Carroll, Boone, Marion, Washington, Madison, Newton, Searcy, Van Buren and Conway counties.

Students from Pea Ridge earned one first place award, three second place finishes and a single third place work in kindergarten through through 8th grade. The result topped lastyears’ totals which saw Pea Ridge take two seconds and a third place.

First-grader Jake Ingram was the lone local exhibit champion as he won with a tempera painting of the “streets” of Venice. His painting has also been selected to travel to the state exhibit in Little Rock later this spring with a chance to receive even more honors in the Arkansas Art Educators State Competition.

First-grader Harmony Reynolds claimed a second place with her tempera painting of a moonrise in the Ozark woods, with kindergartener Nalea Holliday also taking second place with her oil pastel and marker drawing of a medieval village.

Eighthgrader Katie Nunley took second place in the eighthgrade competition with her landscape painting with classmate Audrey Gibson earning third place honors with a stilllife drawing.

Local teachers John Mc-Gee (elementary school) and Anya Bruhin (middle school) presented the student work which was done in the classroom locally.

The five award winners represent the most artists to be so honored at one time in school history.

“We have a lot of talented artists in our schools and it was very tough for us to select the ones to be put forward into the competition.” McGee said. “Especially among first graders, it was most difficult to decide which artworks to send on into the competition since we aren’t allowed very many entries due to the size of the region and therewere so much good art to choose from.”

“When these first graders were in kindergarten, they also won two of the three awards in the region competition, and later won all three awards in the Little Rock arts festival exhibit last spring. To show how much depth there is in the class of 2021, all of these awards were won by different artists among that class” McGee added.

The five artists will be honored with a reception and exhibit at 2 p.m.

Saturday, March 6, at the Fayetteville City Library on Mountain Street in Fayetteville. The presentations of awards is set for 2:30 p.m.

School, Pages 11 on 02/24/2010