Hutchison Girls Have Strong Showing at Mid-South Scholastic Art Awards
Hutchison girls won an impressive 75 Mid-South Scholastic Art Awards this year, with 17 Gold Keys, 29 Silver Keys, and 29 Honorable Mentions.
With these 75 awards, our girls won more total awards than any other independent school. See the full list of winners below.
The Mid-South Scholastic Art Awards offers the girls a chance to compete on a regional and national level. It is an opportunity for them to be recognized for the hard work that goes in to their art. It is also a way for the public to see the level of work that is produced on a consistent basis by Hutchison’s visual art department.
The Fine Arts curriculum at Hutchison provides our girls with the opportunity to practice and excel in many disciplines of art including: drawing and illustration, photography, fashion, sculpture, mixed media, jewelry making, painting, printmaking, and film and animation. Led by professional, working artists, Hutchison’s Fine Arts program is a perfect complement to its strong academic program. In addition to offering a way for girls to express their creativity, practicing an art discipline helps strengthen confidence, as well as critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
“Art does for the right brain what math does for the left, which is why it is important for every student, not just the girls who want to become artists, to have an art education,” said artist Jeanette Leake, middle and upper school art teacher. “Art helps girls think visually and gives them the tools to express their thoughts and ideas in technically strong and creative ways.”
Below is a list of Hutchison’s Scholastic Art Winners.
Anne Grinder '19: Two Keys in Drawing & Illustration
Amellia Hausmann '21: Drawing & Illustration
Michelle Lee '19: Drawing & Illustration
Izabella Moore '22: Photography
Madison Morris '20: Drawing & Illustration
Caroline Seamons '20: Drawing & Illustration
Sydney Shy '20: Drawing & Illustration
Isabella Smith '22: Three Keys in Photography
Nora Tillmanns '19: One Key in Art Portfolio and One Key in Jewelry
Silver Key Winners
Demi Angelakis '20: Painting
Annsley Barton '19: Drawing & Illustration
Sarah Beth Bland '19: Photography
Grace Clement '20: Two Keys in Painting
Anne Grinder '19: One Key in Art Portfolio and Two Keys in Drawing & Illustration
Eva Leake '19: One Key in Art Portfolio and Two Keys in Drawing & Illustration
Michelle Lee '19: Two Keys in Drawing & Illustration
Madison Morris '20: Two Keys in Painting and Two Keys in Drawing & Illustration
Isabella Smith '22: Three Keys in Photography
Grace Ellsworth '21: Painting
Genevieve Geno '22: Photography
Millie Mencke '20: Photography
Anne Wilkes Skipworth '20: Drawing & Illustration
Mia Temme '21: Photography
Nora Tillmanns '19: Jewelry
Mayers Wallace '20: Drawing & Illustration
Marilyn Wiener '20: Drawing & Illustration
Stephanie Woodbury '22: Photography
Honorable Mention Winners
Emerson Applegate '22: Photography
Annsley Barton '19: Art Portfolio
Grace Clement '20: One in Drawing & Illustration and Two in Printmaking
Taylor Houston '19: Two in Mixed Media and One in Fashion
Eva Leake '19: Two in Drawing & Illustration and One in Sculpture
Madison Morris '20: One Each in Printmaking, Painting, and Mixed Media
Nora Tillmanns '19: One in Jewelry and One in Drawing & Illustration
Shade Webb '20: Two in Drawing & Illustration
Dabney Collier '20: Drawing & Illustration
Caroline Couch '20: Film & Animation
Kate Downs '21: Drawing & Illustration
Grace Ellsworth '21: Painting
Anne Grinder '19: Drawing & Illustration
Amellia Hausmann '21: Sculpture
Michelle Lee '19: Art Portfolio
Camille Mattingly '22: Printmaking
Sydney Shy '20: Drawing & Illustration
Isabella Smith '22: Photography
Emily Waggoner '20: Fashion
Stephanie Woodbury '22: Printmaking
The Memphis Brooks Museum of Art will exhibit Gold Key winning artwork from January 26-February 24, and host an awards ceremony for Gold Key, Silver Key, and Honorable Mention winners on Saturday, February 16. For the specific times of each award ceremony, click here.
Eleanor Merchant '23 wanted to find a way to help fight the national ongoing blood shortage, so she organized a blood drive at Hutchison. With her efforts over the past two years, blood donations at the Hutchison blood drive could have saved as many as 192 lives.
Allison Blankenship ’12 has committed her 10 years since graduating from Hutchison to working in the political arena, spending the last five years working in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Becca Coopwood ’27 serves as a student ambassador for The Social Institute, an organization that works to empower students to use social media and technology in a positive way. In her role, she helps produce blog posts from the perspective of students.
If you want to see Coach Thomas Jones light up, ask him about Maxine Engel ’21 and her journey from a rising ninth grader with a broken leg to a senior walking away as a State Champion. “You know how most coaches say, ‘I helped a kid?’ Well, she helped me. Helped me grow as a coach.
Seniors had a lot to say about the Tom Lee Park redevelopment after a recent Rogers Scholars excursion. And that's the point of these forays into the community. “They keep us aware of what is happening in our city, ultimately making us more well-rounded citizens,” said Emma Couch ’23.
Meet Katie Davis, one of Hutchison's third grade teachers. Ms. Davis enjoys taking on a challenge in the classroom and the freedom to follow her students' interests. She encourages her students to become lifelong learners.
The College Board has named Antonella Lejwa ’23 a National Hispanic Recognition Program Scholar, an honor reserved for a select number of outstanding students. She has proven herself through academic achievement and various extracurricular activities.
Middle school teacher Joe Koelsch loves quadratic equations like only a math teacher can. He wants his students to spend time understanding the equations before they rush to solve them. Koelsch, a national expert in Illustrative Math (IM), wrote in a leading blog for educators that IM’s focus on understanding processes, not just the pursuit of a right answer, can be a game-changer for math students.
Solving global issues requires research, critical thinking, proposal crafting, and challenging discussions, and our 7th and 8th graders are honing their diplomacy skills through Model United Nations. The YMCA Middle School Model UN Conference provides an opportunity for students to practice their debate and public speaking skills in a formal setting while encouraging them to find ways to join together as a community to solve current global issues.
Hutchison Lacrosse Head Coach David Gearhardt has been selected as an inductee into the Tennessee Lacrosse Hall of Fame. The longtime Sting coach is in the inaugural class of four, one of a very select group of historically significant contributors to lacrosse in the state of Tennessee.
The career of Berklee Scifres ’23 is only going in one direction – up! Scifres is signing a college scholarship to play basketball at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, where she also plans to pursue a career in aviation.
Two Hutchison seniors signed to continue their athletic careers at the collegiate level and received athletic scholarships after terrific high school careers. Morgan Simmons ’23 and Kolby Cohen ’23 were honored at a signing ceremony held at the new Keras Complex.
Meet Lorraine Gagliano, Hutchison's Latin teacher. Mrs. Gagliano enjoys seeing individual students' English vocabulary and confidence grow. She hopes to spread her passion for the language and culture with her students.
It is a vivid memory for Lynn Witte Rodriguez ’78. She was a sophomore at Hutchison and on a field trip with her biology class, taught by Elsie Yeates, at the Veterans Administration Medical Center. “They packed us into this little room to watch hemodialysis,” she recalled. “I was horrified by the experience. The whole thing scared me to pieces. I remember sitting there, and someone told me not to lean on one of those little silver instrument trays they put out. All of a sudden I woke up in another room. I had completely passed out.”