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Hazelwood West Student Artists In 2011 Healthy Living Calendar
Four students from Hazelwood West Middle School will have artwork appear in the St. Louis County Health Department’s 2011 Healthy Living Calendar.
Each year, the health department sponsors a contest for students in kindergarten through twelfth grade. The purpose is to spread messages to peers that promote a healthy lifestyle. Students can highlight one of three choices – the importance of physical activity, the importance of healthy food choices daily or alcohol-, tobacco- and drug-free living. More than 2,000 student entries from around the metro area were submitted for 13 spots, the cover and one for each month of the year.
Joey Ruiz, an eighth grader, described his poster.
“It has a running shoe on it and it says, ‘Tobacco runs your life’ around the heel and over the top of the shoe and then I designed the whole thing to look like an explosion,” he said. “I didn’t expect to win. I hope it will show other teens that smoking is not good.”
Seventh grader Andrea Gann combined bowling with smoking in her winning design.
“I showed a bowling alley with the bowling pins smoking, two cigarettes form the gutters, a ball is ready to knock out the pins and it says, ‘Strike to Spare Your Life.’ I was excited about winning because I worked really hard on it.”
She said she made at least three versions of her poster to get it perfect for submission to the contest.
Sixth grader Ashlee Fortschneider took a world view with her poster.
“I showed the Earth with a cigarette as king and he’s mad. He has flames coming out of his head. It says, ‘Don’t Let Smoking Rule the World.’ I felt good about winning because I got my message out that smoking is bad and causes cancer.”
Classmate Lauren Barboza also used the Earth as part of her design.
“It shows the world falling to pieces because of all of the pollution,” she said. “It says, ‘Don’t let the world turn to ash in the trash.’ I feel really happy and excited that I won.”
All four students received a copy of their designs, certificates and MP3 players from a St. Louis County Health Department health education coordinator.
