WH art students receive honors at TJC contest

Winners of the Tyler Junior Contest annual portfolio contest include Whitehouse art students Jon Harvell, Salomon Ortiz, Casey Booth, Christina Kennemer, Anna Godiva, Tyler Spitzmiller and Kaitlin Sanson.

The second annual portfolio contest, sponsored by the Graphic Arts/Photography Department of Tyler Junior College, was held recently.

Junior and senior students from area schools participated. The contest attendees were invited to see the TJC students at work while touring the computer and photography labs.

After a tour of the campus, lunch was served to the participants in the Apache rooms.

Special guest speaker, Eric Gilmour, discussed the business of photography and his own extensive career and experiences. After a brief question and answer session, prizes were awarded for the winning entries.

Prizes were awarded for first, second and third place in each of the four categories. Ribbons, books, jump drives and T-shirts were awarded, as well as a variety of other hidden surprises given to the attendees after lunch. The TJC bookstore, TJC Admissions Office, College Books and the Graphic Arts/ Photography Department donated prizes.

"Whitehouse kids took numerous places and we are very proud of them all," said Christine Killian, Whitehouse High School art instructor. "Notice, we took FIRST in three of the four categories."

"The kids started working on this competition shortly after school started," Killian continued. "They competed against each other on campus for spots to compete at TJC. Obviously our tough on-campus competition prepared them well!"

The WHS winners were: in Print Design Division, first, second and honorable mention - Jon Harvell; third and HM - Salomon Ortiz; HM - Casey Booth. In Advertising Division: first - Christina Kennemer; and third - Anna Godiva. In Illustration Division, Tyler Spitzmiller took honorable mention. In Photography Division, Kaitlin Sanson took first and third places.