Ben AlversonWhen 9-year-old Ben Alverson, a third-grader at Chattanooga School for the Liberal Arts, stops to think about kids all over the Chattanooga area finding Christmas gifts wrapped in paper bearing his design, his already huge smile gets even bigger and an actual tremor runs through his body like a hiccup.
The son of Jim and Stacy Alverson, Ben is the 16th winner of the recently renamed Lin C. Parker Wrapping Paper Design Contest sponsored by the Chattanooga Times Free Press. The contest is open each year to students in grades 1-5. Parker was a longtime writer/page designer at the paper who passed away in September. One of her favorite jobs was curating the design contest.
Ben's design is featured on a real sheet of wrapping paper that can be found in today's edition, and it will also be one of the gift-wrapping choices in the Kids on the Block wrapping stations at Hamilton Place mall through Christmas Eve.
His design features a pastel painting of four ornaments. He went through four design changes before settling on the winning formula. One early design had characters battling each other with Nerf guns and later with snowballs.
Readers Choice Winner
HONORABLE MENTION: Ada Boyd, fifth-grader at Thrasher ElementaryAda’s design of penguins floating on icebergs received the most votes in the online Readers’ Choice contest. She wins a cash prize of $25.
"I was going to draw penguins, but they were kind of messy and it was hard to repeat them," he says.
While he refocused his thoughts, he recalls, he was staring at the family tree and noticed the ornaments.
His mother, an art teacher at Chattanooga School for the Arts and Sciences, says she reminded him of the same thing she reminds all of her students who participate in the contest: "Think about the repeating patterns on the page."
"I might have thought about that for a second, but I don't remember," Ben laughs.
Ben's design was one of 10 finalists chosen from hundreds of submissions by a panel of volunteers from the local arts community. In addition to having his design featured on the wrapping paper, Ben receives $25 in cash, gift certificates from the Chattanooga Theatre Centre and the Hunter Museum of American Art and tickets to the Creative Discovery Museum.
Finalists will be displayed in an art exhibit at the Creative Discovery Museum. The contest is co-sponsored by Chattanooga's Kids on the Block, ArtsBuild and Creative Discovery Museum.
He seemed especially proud to be getting the Hunter passes because the family recently visited the museum without him to see the Wayne White exhibit. Ben loves to sketch and particularly likes drawing cartoon characters. He is a big fan of the "Spy vs. Spy" cartoons from Mad Magazine.
Winning the contest "makes me want to do it more," he says.
Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354.