This was my first attempt at a Coloring Contest for the kids of Quartzsite. There was a bit more work than I originally thought! When I worked for other newspapers, the kids would drop off their entries at the office. Since I now work out of my fifth wheel, and I'm a member of both chambers in town, I figured that they would be great locations to drop off the entries. Ehrenberg and Quartzsite Elementary Schools also needed boxes, so I decorated 4 big boxes.
On Friday, the day of the dealine, we retrieved those boxes, sorted through the entries, made sure we could read the names, called the school for last names that were missing. Next came the hard decisions, but luckily, I had help with deciding on the winners. I gathered the prize certificates from the 3 sponsors: CRIT Theatres, Addicted to Deals, and Silly Al's Pizza. Monday morning, I scanned nine winning entries, resized and cleaned up the art in Photoshop, designed the full page, matched the names to the entry, and got the paper to the printer fifteen minutes before deadline. Then I made up 9 envelopes, matching each one with a certificate and their prize from the sponsors.
Destiney Hayes, age 10, from Ehrenberg, AZ
won 1st place in the 8-10 year-old category!
The Qtz. school had a great idea. All the kids would be at the Christmas Dinner and Program the night the paper came out, so I went and awarded the winners at the end of the program in front of their parents and teachers. It was a great adventure and I plan on doing again...go figure!
