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TES students contribute to Obama artwork

By Shawn Linenberger - | May 19, 2009

Shawn Linenberger

Nick French, a Tonganoxie Elementary School fourth-grader, called a project his class was working on Monday “Battleship with 900 pieces.”

But it’s a project that President Barack Obama soon will get to view first-hand.

Similar to the Battleship board game, TES students were using a grid to place pegs in a pegboard.

The end result of the project, however, with help from a school from each of the other 49 states, will be a 9-by-11 1/2-foot portrait of President Obama with an American flag in the background.

Kiethann Hurt of Tonganoxie, who is a lifetime member of Creative Home Arts Club, learned about the project through the Creative Home Arts magazine. The publication is sponsoring the nationwide activity, known as the Big Picture Project.

The first member to respond from each state had the opportunity to be part of the event and enlist a fourth-grade class from their community into the project.

However, the first person in Kansas had to back out, and Hurt was second in line.

“I was just really excited about it,” she said.

On Monday, TES fourth-graders in Karen Stephenson’s class colored pegs in nine square boards.

Many of the boards called for black and dark brown pegs, as they were working on a background area of the nationwide project. A couple boards, though, required several different colored pegs be used in the TES classroom.

Hurt, who is volunteer coordinator for Kansas, will apply adhesive to the finished boards and mail them off to be added to the other states’ contributions.

The pegboards must be shipped out by May 30 and will be presented to President Obama before the artwork is taken on an international tour.

In addition, two students will be selected from the 50 classrooms to help present their work to President Obama.

“I’ve been so pumped since I got the information,” Hurt said. “And when I realized that representatives would be sent, I was even more excited.”

Teachers and volunteers will submit their nominations in writing to the magazine for consideration to be a representative.

The project, when complete, is expected to be a new world record for size in such a work, according to information Hurt received from the magazine.