Farmers Awards Young Americanos Photo Contest Winners
At a special ceremony in McAllen, Texas, Farmers Insurance awarded more than $6,000 in academic scholarships to 35 student winners, mostly from the Rio Grande Valley, of the Farmers-sponsored Young Americanos Youth Photography Competition. The winners received cash awards ranging $100 for elementary school participants to $1,000 for the Grand Prize winner.
The Farmers Insurance Young Americanos Photography Competition, which was held from September 1 through November 6, encouraged students from kindergarten through the 12th grade to photograph Latino Life in the Rio Grande Valley. The photo contest was held in partnership with the International Museum of Art & Science in McAllen, which will display the winning photographs as a special exhibition that will run through March 16, 2003.
Receiving the $1,000 Grand Prize cash scholarship will be Courtney Bess, an eighth-grade student at De Leon Middle School in McAllen. Bess’ winning photo shows a young girl competing in a horseback riding competition.
Most of the student winners represent local communities such as McAllen, Pharr and Edinburg, but winners also came from as far away as Brownsville, Laredo and Georgetown.
The photographs will also be available for viewing at the award-winning website www.youngamericanos.net beginning December 14.
“These photographs are outstanding. The students have truly captured what Latino life is like in the Rio Grande Valley,” said John Hageman, vice president and state executive director for Farmers Insurance. “Every student, their families and their teachers should be proud of the students’ accomplishments.”
Farmers’ Young Americanos Youth Photography Competition was developed by the company as a companion piece to Americanos: Latino Life in the United States, a critically-acclaimed photography exhibition, jointly produced by the Smithsonian Institution and actor/activist Edward James Olmos, which was recently on exhibition at the International Museum of Art & Science. Farmers is a national sponsor of the Americanos exhibition which is currently touring cities across the U.S. through 2004.