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Hazelwood West Middle Students Are County Calendar Winners
Warren Jackson, center, a health education coordinator with the St. Louis County Health Department, honored Hazelwood West Middle School students Robert Anderson, left, and Taylor Corbin. Anderson, a sixth grader, and Corbin, an eighth grader, are winners in the department’s annual healthy living poster art contest. Here, the students display their art, which will appear with 11 other area students’ pieces, in the health department’s 2010 calendar.
Two students from Hazelwood West Middle School are among 13 children from around the St. Louis area who will have their artwork used in the 2010 St. Louis County Health Department calendar.
Robert Anderson, who is in sixth grade, and Taylor Corbin, who is in eighth grade, received certificates and $25 mall gift cards from Warren Jackson, a health education coordinator with the St. Louis County Health Department, for their efforts.
Jackson said the department received about 3,000 entries from county students in kindergarten through 12th grade. County health department staff members whittled that number to about 200 semi-finalists and from that group, they voted on 13 final entries.
“We have changed our focus,” he said. “In years past, the contest was just about not smoking. Now, it’s about healthy living – eating right, exercising, staying healthy and not smoking.”
Jackson said the new approach targets children’s health topics that have made headlines – juvenile diabetes and obesity, as well as high blood pressure and cholesterol.
Corbin’s design stemmed from talking about health concerns while at school. She began with a black-and-white rough draft featuring a cityscape.
Her final artwork depicts a colorful downtown street scene with the words, ‘To Be Tobacco-Free Is A Life For Me!’ in the sky and it shows a young girl standing atop one of the multi-story buildings.
Anderson took a different approach with his poster, which made quite an impact on at least one family member.
Anderson drew a close-up view of a hand grasping a cigarette placed diagonally, with an image of the Earth at the end where a person would inhale. Over the image are the words, ‘Smoking Shortens The Existence Of Humans.’ In addition, he drew rockets blasting into space with the sun in the background.
Art teacher Elaine Eversgerd says this is not the first time she has had her students’ entries chosen for the calendar. Other Hazelwood students participated but there were no other HSD winners.
Complimentary calendars will be sent to teachers whose students submitted artwork as well as to the students who won. The county will not offer the calendars for sale to the general public but this fall, people who are interested in viewing the calendar artwork may use the county’s Web site, www.stlouisco.com, to see it.
