Aisles of colorful, unique, and sentimental projects fill up the floor of the Casper Event Center. Projects vary from drawings, paintings, and sculptures of all shapes, sizes, and colors. People file down the stairs to the floor, so they can observe all the projects in complete awe. The laughs and conversations echo throughout the Event Center. They continue to file down till the floor is completely crowded by both projects and observers. Blue ribbons and Congressional Awards are passed out left and right for the outstanding craftsmanship and creativity for certain projects.

The Wyoming Activities Association holds an annual Symposium for high school artists from all over the state. These artists have the ability to showcase their drawing, painting, and sculpting skills. Their projects were either created and completed for a class or for fun.

“This year I brought an enlarged ceramic wristwatch that was light brown and gold and enlarged ceramic pinecone that was dark brown. The wristwatch was my favorite because of the amount of time and attention to little details was put into every aspect of it. Because of that, it won a blue ribbon,” said junior, Dani Mohr.

Mohr has gone to the annual Symposium for two consecutive years to showcase her ceramic sculptures. Last year she received a Congressional Award for a ceramic, metallic purple diamond and another blue ribbon for an anatomical human heart. Mohr has sculpted many various sculptures over the last two years.

“This year I put in two portraits, one was a watercolor/color pencil and then charcoal. The charcoal one was my favorite because I liked how it turned out and how everything worked together, it won a blue ribbon,” said sophomore, Sydney Soliz.

Soliz has been to Symposium for two consecutive years also. Last year Soliz entered in five various drawings, all done in a different way. They all did very well and impressed many judges on her creativity and attention to detail. Drawing is one of Soliz’s favorite hobbies, and she spends a lot of time doing so to perfect her skill.

“Symposium is like a track meet, you look down from the stands and go, ‘Hey! That kid looks fast, so he gets a ribbon!’ Overall though, Symposium this year was very successful on more of a personal accomplishment level after Natrona County made some strategic changes that limited our count of blue ribbons and Congressional awards given out to the students,” said Mr. Asay.