COUNTYWIDE : 2,500 Students Enter Their Creative Best

When 17-year-old Kristen Bossi of Newbury Park decided to draw a picture for the Ventura County PTA’s Reflections competition--an annual contest that encourages student creativity--she didn’t have far to go for inspiration.

Following this year’s theme of “If I Had a Wish,” Kristen’s pencil drawing shows her settled into an armchair, a soda in hand and an impish look on her face.

Frolicking about her are four elves, each of them juggling brightly colored pills.

“I have asthma,” she explained. “If I had a wish, it would be that I wouldn’t have to take pills and use three different inhalers three times a day.”

For her efforts, the Newbury Park High School senior earned second place in her age division at an awards ceremony honoring the contest winners.

First-place winner Jennifer Gentry, 16, a junior at Westlake High School, used an airbrush and colored pencil for her entry depicting World War II soldiers silhouetted against a sunset. Cumulus clouds in the rough shape of a hand giving a peace sign loom on the horizon.

She completed the drawing long before the Gulf War had begun, she said.

The Reflections contest is an opportunity for students nationwide from kindergarten through 12th grade to compete in art, literature, photography and music, county Reflections organizer Lynn Smith said.

Locally, each division is divided into four age groups, with the first-place entry from each age group being sent to state competition, Smith said. If they win at the state level, they go on to national competition, where the finalists win cash prizes.

About 2,500 entries were turned in to the county contest this year, “a positive sign that students want to be creative,” even though budget restrictions may keep schools from spending much time on art, Smith said.

“Our poor teachers are caught on the barbed-wire fence between developing creative talent and slamming home the ABCs, in between having to look for lice and make sure the homework is done,” Smith said. “This contest is a wonderful opportunity for the kids to express themselves.”