Palmer students design top posters

June 3, 2005

CASEY RESSLER/Frontiersman Valley Life editor

When Palmer Junior Middle School created a poster contest in conjunction with the school's first Memorial Day assembly, the response from students was to grab their paints, markers and pencils and get busy.

Debbie Niekamp, a teacher at PJMS, said more than 100 students entered posters in the contest. The theme was, "Memorial Day, a Day of Remembrance," and was held in conjunction with the school's assembly, which honored fallen Palmer Police Department Officer Jim Rowland Jr.

"A lot of the students don't truly understand the significance of Memorial Day and what it means," Niekamp said. "We thought the assembly and the poster contest would show them what Memorial Day is all about."

Sheilamarie McDonald won first place in the contest.

Her poster had a silhouette of a firefighter, patriotic images and an Alaska setting.

Mike Irvine took second place, and Amanda Del Frate was the third-place winner.

All of the students were recognized at the PJMS assembly last Friday, and received gift certificates to Wal-Mart.

The posters were judged by Bob Arturo of the Palmer Veterans of Foreign Wars post, who is an artist.

At the Palmer post, he painted a mural that includes soldiers raising the U.S. flag at Iwo Jima, and Niekamp said he offered students the opportunity to come down to the post and take a look at the mural before creating their posters.

"He said a lot of the posters had that theme," Niekamp said.