The McDuffie County Farm Bureau recently sponsored the annual art contest for high school students in grades 9-12. This contest is an opportunity to reach out to high school students to give them a greater awareness of the importance of agriculture and to promote the Farm Bureau as a positive community member. The artwork represents agriculture in McDuffie County as well as in the state of Georgia. We would especially like to thank Claudia Wells, Thomson High School art teacher, who works with us each year on this project.
Our three winners this year were first place, Brianna Brown, second place, Cheryl Helmly, and third place Katherine Timmerman. These three young ladies did an outstanding job with their ag-related artwork.
Our art contest is a time of celebration and praise for our winners, but it was also a time of sadness this year due to the accident involving Cheryl, which occurred on the Tuesday following the presentation of awards to the girls. With her family's permission, we are running this article and photo to announce our three winners. We presented cash prizes to the girls at Thomson High School on Friday, Feb. 23, and took this photo. Katherine Timmerman, our third place winner was unavailable for the photo that day.
McDuffie County is very fortunate to have many outstanding students in our school system. We should be very proud of their accomplishments and reward them for a job well done. Our sympathy goes out to the Helmly family, but we just want them to know how proud we are of Cheryl and what a talented young lady she was. Congratulations to Brianna and Katherine for their talents and effort as well.
