Students Show Flair For Art

By Dustin Kass, dustinKass@miconews.com

Students sketched this classic car during the first-ever Pioneer Art League Festival last week in Osawatomie. Osawatomie student Jonas Oelke’s work was on display at the festival. Prairie View won the title, while host school Osawatomie took third.

A pair of male students — artists, really — sat in the warm midday sun in a parking lot outside of Osawatomie High School last week. The two students weren’t playing hooky or goofing off between classes. In fact, they didn’t even know each other, and though only 20 or 30 feet apart, the pair rarely talked.

Instead, both young men devoted their attention to only their challenge: the classic car sitting not far from them that they were trying to sketch.

But this wasn’t a routine art assignment or a mere coincidence of two sketch artists who just happened to choose the same object. Rather, the two men — one from Osawatomie and the other from Jayhawk-Linn High School — were actually competing against one another, jockeying for a higher score.

OHS truly was a creative hub last week, as more than 75 students from five league schools joined OHS students for the first-ever Pioneer League Art Festival.

The host school finished third in the festival, as Prairie View took home the first-ever crown, besting runner-up Anderson County by nine points. Jayhawk-Linn finished fifth out of the six schools at the competition.

The Trojans were led by Alissa Haney, who received a Best of Show honor and two Artist Excellence designation, for her work. The team of Shyann Bacon, Amanda Ellis and Renate Hewer took first place in the sidewalk chalk competition.

Osawatomie’s Melissa Rahmberg, Hewer, Ellis, Alex Crafton and Jonas Oelke received Artist Excellence for their creations during the festival.

But the day ended up being much more about creativity than competition, students said.

“It’s just great to be around this many talented, creative people,” said Jayhawk-Linn junior Jessica Edmundson.