Nine-year-old Autumn Dowhaluk from Atmore is one of 14 winners across Canada in a Royal Canadian Legion's Remembrance Day art contest.
More than 100,000 entries from Canadian students were received for the Legion's poster and literary contest.
"I was so happy and excited to hear I won,” Dowhaluk said. "I worked really hard on the poster and I just really wanted people to remember.”
A regional Legion branch initially judges local posters, poetry and essay entries during the Remembrance Day activities. Dowhaluk's poster was judged in Boyle. Regional judges then decide which posters to send to the Provincial Command level, where they are judged again. The process is lengthy, and the Dowhaluk family just learned that their daughter won top prize for her age category.
The poster contest is held at four levels, Senior (Grades 10, 11 and 12), Intermediate (Grades 7, 8 and 9), Junior (Grades 4, 5 and 6) and Primary (kindergarten, and Grades 1, 2 and 3). The literary contest takes place at all levels except primary. A panel of experts in those fields judges all entries received at the national level.
"It is really neat to hear about this, we only just found out she had won, and we are so proud of her,” said Autumn's mom Michelle.
Legion officials are holding onto Autumn's artwork to put it into a special montage they will release later this year. But the young artist was happy to describe her work. On one side of the poster, a girl holds a kite flying in the wind under with the word "freedom”, and on the other side a helmet and battle scene is depicted under the words "we remember”.
"I wanted to show people how important it is to remember, and how happy we should all be to have freedom,” Dowhaluk said.
For her hard work, Dowhaluk's winning entry will be on display at the Canadian War Museum from June 2012 until May 2013, and she will receive a certificate of merit from the Royal Canadian Legion.
