Sullivan students win honors at fair

Two Sullivan Middle School students won Best in Class honors in the San Diego County Fair's Student Showcase art competition.

Dacy Denton won Best in Class for seventh-graders in the "3-D: Recycled Art, 80 percent Recycled Materials" category. Cody Lopez received the Best in Class award for seventh-graders who submitted a "Thematic Art: Fair Theme" entry.

"I'm really pleased," Sullivan art teacher Melissa Ledri said. "It just made me really happy and excited for both of them that they achieved that."

The recycled art category requires at least 80 percent of the content to be recycled materials. Denton made a harpy eagle on a perch utilizing cardboard, chicken wire, Styrofoam and a plastic bottle.

"It's a really awesome piece, and I'm not surprised it won the Best in Class," Ledri said.

Ledri teaches three art classes: beginning art, advanced art and 3-D design and printmaking. Ledri also teaches sixth-grade social studies and language arts classes. Denton took Ledri's beginning art class as a sixth-grader in 2016-2017 and was in the 3-D art class during 2017-2018.

"She's a really hard-working student," Ledri said. "If she has an idea, she stays with it."

The fair's student showcase does not have head-to-head judging other than for Best in Class or Best of Show, and a point system determines which individual entries receive first, second and third place. Denton obtained two first-place ribbons; she also entered a flip book titled "Snake Cake," which was given first-place status.

Lopez used a color pencil and pen to draw an avian astronaut with the earth, the sun, the moon and a spaceship in the background.

"His is more conceptual," Ledri said.

Ledri taught Lopez in her beginning art class during 2016-2017. He took the advanced art class as a seventh-grader.

"I think he's super-talented," Ledri said.

The Sullivan students had approximately four weeks to work on their projects. The 2017-2018 beginning art class had 32 students; Ledri's advanced art class had 17 students and 34 students took the 3-D design and printmaking class. Because sixth-graders enter the Creative Youth competition for grades K-6, those 27 students were in that exhibit while the other 56 were entered in the Student Showcase.

"It's always really fun to see Sullivan be represented," Ledri said.

Ledri has taught art at Sullivan since 2011 and has entered works in the county fair since 2015.