PASCO, Wash - The 2024 Ben Franklin Transit Art Bus visited three local high schools on May 21. This event took place to honor and celebrate the students who won the BFT Art Contest . The winning students' art gets displayed on the outside and inside of the Art Bus.
Students in grades nine through twelve submitted their artwork from January until March. Winners of each category, traditional art and digital art, received prizes in the form of gift cards plus, they get their art displayed on the bus.
The contest's theme this year was 'Free Ride,' a reference to BFT providing free rides to those under 18 and over 65 years of age.
Almost 200 submissions were sent in from Tri-Cities students.
Chiawana High School Student Soleil Olivera won third place for their digital artwork. Olivera won second place digital in 2023.
"It was like really nice to have my art around," Olivera said. "I feel like because of what I drew it shows like people from different backgrounds. And even at the reception yesterday there was people that kind of fit into it. So I thought it was nice that people might be able to like see themselves represented."
The art contest is meant to highlight students. Community Relations and Social Media Manager Brittany Archibald said they hope students can be excited to see their work around the Tri-Cities.
"I think art is how we represent our culture a lot of the time and we love that it's student art in particular. About 40 percent of our ridership is youth and so we really love the idea of doing a program that is just for students," Archibald said.
Teachers help facilitate getting the art from students, Archibald said, "A lot of teachers in the area will assign projects, like as a school assignment and that really helps us get the quality of submissions we get, the amount of submissions that we get. We are really thankful for our educator advocates who partner with us on this program."
Every year Ben Franklin Transit puts together a new committee to judge all the submissions. Then, the top ten submissions from each category are sent to the Richland Arts Commission. The Richland Arts Commission narrows the selection of art to the top three.
The Art Bus is redecorated each year using large stickers that have been printed using the students' artwork.
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