By Alex Harrington and Catherine Moore
Two Utah Catholic School students were selected as winners at the international level of the Knights of Columbus Substance Abuse Awareness Poster Contest.
Taking top honors in the Alcohol Abuse category, 12- to 14-year-old division, was Calista Wright, whose family are parishioners of St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church.
Mary Karrick, an eighth-grade graduate of Saint Olaf Catholic School, claimed first place in the Drug Abuse category, 12- to 14-year-old division.
The Knights of Columbus’ Substance Abuse Poster Contest is an annual challenge to students to create posters that highlight the “negative effects that drug and alcohol abuse may have on society,” according to the international fraternal order’s website.
The contest begins at the state level; winners move on to compete nationally and internationally.
Wright, who will be entering 10th grade at Copper Hills High School, “was shocked” by her success in the contest, she said. “I didn’t enter this expecting anything,” she said, adding that the positive feedback her art received came out of the blue.
The idea for her poster, titled “Be Smart, Be Safe, Be Sober,” came to her as she thought about the damage that alcohol can do to a person’s body, Wright said. She designed her poster to show the physical damage alcohol can do to internal organs, in the hopes of raising others’ awareness of the dangers of substance abuse, she said.
She kept working on her poster, changing things little by little, and “improving the idea that I had,” Wright said.
Tom Giron, a Knight and chairman of the poster contest, has seen more and more students from Utah proved to have outstanding artwork, even when competing against their peers worldwide, he said.
“We’ve started doing really well on the international level,” he said, adding that since the contest began in 2011, three other students from Utah besides this year’s winners have triumphed on the international stage.
Karrick created her poster as an art class project last year during Red Ribbon Week. Her poster was chosen for submission at the state level by the Knights of Columbus Council #5502 of Saint Olaf Parish. Selected as a winner by the state council, it then advanced to the national and finally international level.
Karrick learned that she had won the top prize when she and her family attended the 5:30 p.m. Mass on Aug. 12 at St. Olaf Parish. At the end of Mass, Utah State Deputy Knight Andrew Airriess announced that one of the winners was from the parish.
As Airriess was explaining the process for choosing the winners, “I was looking around the church to see who it could be,” Karrick said.
When her name was announced, she was so surprised and shocked that she didn’t realize she was receiving a standing ovation from the congregation. Her family joined her for the presentation of her framed poster. As parishioners left Mass, they stopped to admire the poster and congratulate her. Then the family went to Taco Bell, Karrick’s favorite place to eat to celebrate.
The theme of Karrick’s poster was “Drug Use Is Life Abuse.” Kathy Dorich, art teacher of Saint Olaf School, introduced the contest by talking about how drugs can affect users’ appearances. This gave Karrick the inspiration for her theme to use a two-sided face to show the effects of drugs.
Before beginning her drawing, she researched how drugs change people’s faces. For the poster, Karrick drew the face showing a healthy woman on the left half of the face. The right side is the face of the same woman after using drugs.
Karrick worked for hours to ensure the poster was perfect, and the result was the beautiful and well-executed presentation, Dorich said.
Catherine Moore is assistant principal of Saint Olaf School.
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