On Saturday, May 20th at Community Day on Campus, Mayor Ken Koelsch shared the following opening remarks with a full house of families, community members and educators for the 14th annual elementary student artist recognition ceremony.

“As mayor of the City and Borough of Juneau,  I am honored to be here today to recognize some of our budding artists.  If you haven’t seen their talent upstairs you need to. The artwork displayed is part of the reason why Juneau’s recognized as one of the art communities of the Northwest.  Art education in our schools helped create those creative building blocks and we need to support it as a community.  And I am not going to take up any more time because we have some artists to recognize.”

100 prize ribbons were distributed to proud, sometimes shy, student artists who had a piece of art they created at school selected by their teacher.  Mayor Koelsch was introduced by School Board President, Brian Holst, who joined in the presentation to student artists along with Cindy Hudson, of Women of the Moose, Andy Story, School Board Vice President, and Jen LaRoe, Arts Education Director with the JAHC.  The Ladies of the Moose support the JSD All Elementary Art Show annually and have done so for several years.

Each JSD Elementary teacher has the opportunity to select two student works from the year to enter into the show. Elementary Art Specialist, Nancy Lehnhart, instrumentally coordinates classroom teacher involvement, encouraging teachers to recognize student artists from their classroom.

As our community participates in Ensuring the Arts for Any Given Child, the beauty and understanding these works of student art reflect and the recognition these artists receive highlight the Mayor’s “creative building blocks,” supporting the fact that the arts are fundamental to our students’ education.

For more information on Ensuring the Arts for Any Given Child, please visit our webpage or contact Jen LaRoe at jen@jahc.org.