Vision of peace wins contest
Jadyn Daniels, a Hot Springs Junior Academy eighth-grader, has won the District 7-L Lions Club Peace Poster Contest.
“It’s exciting. I was not expecting this. I didn’t think that I would win at all. It is heartwarming,” Daniels said.
Daniels said she feels her poster was selected as the winner because the committee saw the message she was trying to send to the people of the world.
The theme of this year’s poster contest is “Peace Through Service.”
“In order to have peace, you have to have people that are dedicated to making peace, and the people that are usually dedicated to doing that are the army, the policemen and those jobs that help people. If they keep doing
that it is sure to bring peace to the world,” Daniels said.
“If there isn’t peace then there is chaos … I think over the years and over the decades that we have found peace. Even though it isn’t always good in this world right now, there is more good in the world right now than a few decades ago.”
Daniels said the poster was important to create because she knew other contestants were going to do peace signs and the world on their posters, but she felt it needed to be more than that.
Daniels said she used the school’s supplies to create her poster and made two or three drafts before the final one, noting the other drafts were not what she was trying to portray.
On Daniels’ poster, she has a dove underneath the Earth, which represents peace, she said, noting the dove is carrying the planet on its back as it flies.
“To me, that would represent peace flowing throughout the Earth or peace needs to carry the Earth and needs to be spread throughout,” Daniels said.
“It is such an honor to be able to not only be a part of this process but to just be able to be present and see the excitement that Jadyn has. Her piece of art was amazing and it honestly needed this recognition,” Stephanie Goodman, a Hot Springs Junior Academy teacher, said.
“(To get to the) district level that was exciting but to know
that she has moved on to the next level of competition is just an amazing feeling. I’m so proud of her. I’m so excited for her. She is very talented so this is a very cool process to be able to be a part of,” Goodman said.