With a theme of harmony and music and a beautiful rendering of birds in a basin, 12-year-old Jamie Raisor-Quick took home bragging rights for a year as Forest Park’s vehicle sticker artist for 2005.

The sixth-grader at Forest Park Middle School is an active young lady who volunteers serving food for the homeless, plays the saxophone and the piano and is in the band at her school.

She is also an accomplished artist, having won the REVIEW’s Design an Ad competition when she was in third grade and, most recently, having won a poetry contest with a poem titled “Giggles.”

Raisor-Quick beat over 100 applicants who submitted drawings from across Forest Park for the chance to have their rendering used as a backdrop for the 2005 vehicle sticker. Raisor-Quick’s name and school will be displayed on the sticker.

Her drawing depicts a bird basin, with several blue jays and cardinals singing, set against a rising sun backdrop, with trees and a house.

“It shows this is a nice community and everybody gets along,” Raisor-Quick said.

Raisor-Quick hopes to own a restaurant or do hair when she grows up, but said she may also leave room to play basketball.

Julie Hogan, Raisor-Quick’s art teacher at Forest Park Middle School said she gives the students time in class to work on these competitions.

“Every time a contest comes along we like to participate,” Hogan said. “They feel they can win, we talk about the concept and I help them develop it.

“I give them visual advice; for instance, I would never encourage kids to do lettering in different colors, that would be too busy,” she said.

Hogan also teaches fifth grade art at Field-Stevenson School, where another one of her students, Eric Miller, studies.

Miller submitted almost 10 drawings and won second place in the competition with his depiction of a ring of children holding hands set against an American flag style backdrop.

“I had this idea in my head for a pretty long time, to show kids working together and succeeding at what they do,” Miller said. “I couldn’t think of anything for a background, so I picked red, white and blue for the American flag.”

In his drawing, each of the little children is a different color, an element the 10-year-old felt was very important to the painting.

“I tried not to make each one the same color or it wouldn’t show we have colorful, different people here,” he said.

Miller said he may or may not participate again next year, as “a year is a long time, and a lot can happen.”

The third place winner was fifth-grader Katie Vilanova, a softball player for the Forest Park Fusion, who said for her Forest Park is The Park.

Her drawing depicts just that, the softball field at The Park, with children playing ball.

“I thought that Forest Park was a community where there is a baseball field and a lot of children go there to play catch,” Vilanova said. “I think it’s beautiful [The Park] and I like to play softball.”

Vilanova said she will definitely be trying again next year.

The program, which began with the 2001 sticker is an opportunity to create something fun that changes year-to-year on the stickers.

“It is about bringing local schools, government and the community together,” said Mayor Anthony Calderone. “It is engaging the students by giving them an opportunity to show their creativity.

“We want to reward them and in addition to winning and being able to boast that her picture is on every car in Forest Park, the park board has supplied us with a pool pass for all the winners,” he said.

Vehicle stickers go on sale March 1.