Area youths receive awards for Ag Day Bumper Stickers

The PC CattleWomen sponsor the "Ag in Montana Schools" bumper sticker contest each year. This contest is open to all Phillips County school youth grades 1 through 5. County Superintendent and area school teachers work together to inform youth of the importance of the agricultural community that they live in. The youth create a bumper sticker depicting what Ag means to them. These bumper stickers are judged on the county level. The winners this year are: First Grade – Emree Stuart from Malta, Second Grade – Evelyn Anderson from Whitewater, Third Grade – Sloan Lefdahl from Whitewater, Fourth Grade – Madison Williamson from Malta and Fifth Grade – Kaylee Bishop from Malta. These bumper stickers were displayed at Ag Day by the Phillips County CattleWomen and each youth received a gift card to the Malta Dairy Queen for a Cheeseburger meal. All top winners of each county are judged on the State level. Two Phillips County youth were unable to attend Ag Day because they were in Helena at a ceremony for the top winners in the State. State winners are Sloan Lefdahl and Kaylee Bishop.

Williamson, a fourth grade students, won the first place award for fourth graders. She is the daughter of Lisa and Shey and this year her bumper sticker entry focused on noxious weeds in Montana. Williamson said that the noxious weeds kill of native plants and are no good. Williamson bumper sticker displayed four different types of weeds and said she dislikes all four weeds equally. She added that the Yellow Toad Flax was the hardest to draw. For her winning entry, Williamson was awarded a cheeseburger meal from Dairy Queen. She said she likes her burgers prepared a certain way.

"I like ketchup," she said adding she was happy to have won.

Stuart, the winner of the first grade category, daughter of Jake and Ashley, entitled her bumper sticker Moovin Montana and depicted a pink rooster, a yellow rooster, an orange pig, a pink barn and a yellow sun. Of all of her drawing, Stuart said one was harder to draw than the others were.

"The pig because it took a lot of work," Stuart said. "(The bumper sticker) took me a whole day to draw and I think it turned out good."

Stuart admitted that when she was done drawing the sticker she was confident it would win and added that her all-time favorite thing to draw is stars. She said her DQ cheeseburger would include pickles, mustard and cheese.

Anderson, the winner from the second grade and daughter of Becky and Ed, named her bumper sticker Sweet Montana Wheat.

"I just thought of it in my mind," Anderson said of the inspiration to pick wheat as her topic. "It took me two days to draw and the hardest part to draw was the wheat because I had a hard time getting it all drawn."

Anderson admitted that she wasn't sure if she would win or not – though she said her teacher thought she would – and that she was excited to be picked as a top finisher. On her DQ burger, Anderson will be having pickles, ketchup and mayo.

Honorable mentions bumper stickers were: First Grade – Dallas Judd, Morgan McEwen, Alyssa Scott and Duke Williamson all from Malta, Second Grade – Kayann Bergos, Spur Leathers, Owen Thompson, Kinlie Cummings all from Malta, Third Grade – Josie Brown (Saco), Anna Harms (Malta), Kendall Scheffelmear and Paige Wasson from Whitewater, Fourth Grade – Madyson Bain, Wyatt Dunbar, Gabby Jayndes, Kylee Nelson all from Malta and Fifth Grade – Jaycee Erickson, Skylie Lefdahl and Daeson Salveson all from Saco. Congratulations to all youth.