Thanks KDRO
Photoshop CS4

I went to elementary school in Colorado Springs, Colorado and in fourth grade my teacher entered the class into a Martin Luther King Jr. "I Have a Dream" poster contest. I spent tons of time on my entry, staying after hours and almost not finishing in time. My dream was to be able to work with lots of animals so I drew a forest during sunset with shadows being cast and me sitting on a turtle holding a deer's face, and there were many other forest animals nearby. It was mixed media, I remember using crayons, colored pencils and maybe some other things.

Out of all the districts in the K-5 competition, I won first place. I remember the winner for the 6-12 competition was in 6th grade and her entry wasn't even that good. It was a classroom and the people were drawn as stick figures in marker and there was no background. Prize for first place was a six month membership to the YMCA. My mother was really grateful for this since my dad had been unemployed for a long time and she was worried about what my brothers and sister and I would have to do for the summer.

Before getting a chance to see my artwork again, they sent it around the state where other children could have a chance to see it. Unfortunately, idiots were involved and the artwork was placed within reach of small children. The posters ended up getting ripped up and we were simply informed they had been trashed. At the time my ten year old brain accepted this, but as I grew older I realized how wronged I had been. I have no picture of that poster, no old photograph, nothing. I have only the memory of what it looked like.

Many months ago, I was particularly sad about the issue and decided to write into several news stations in the Colorado Springs area to see if any of them had the news reel that I had been on. (I never got to see myself on the news because it aired during the 10 o'clock news, which my mom insisted was past my bedtime.) Problem is, I didn't know when it aired. Not only did I not know the specific date, but also whether it was 1994 or 1995 since I had the same teacher for both years and I couldn't remember which it was. Since I also didn't know the news station, I simply sent out messages with little hope.

Just a couple weeks ago, I heard back from KDRO saying they had found the news dub I was looking for. The fact that they were willing to search through their archives for so long boggled my mind. They even created a digital copy that they mailed to me. Unfortunately the news reel was more like a blip, only showing the other winner and I mentioning something about what Martin Luther King Jr. Day meant to us, and some random artwork that wasn't either of ours. Then entire clip is less than a minute long. Disappointing, but it doesn't affect my appreciation for the KDRO team.

I wanted to thank them with a little art piece. I meant to whip up a quick vexel piece, but it ended up not at all like I planned. This piece isn't meant to symbolize my lost poster at all, it's just some things I really loved about Colorado: the mountains, blue spruce and bighorn sheep. Other things I wanted to include but didn't due to simplicity were: red rocks, pronghorn, cougars, aspens, columbines, mountain goats, and some other things.

Art © Joanna Engelkemier, all rights reserved.
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