By Shivani Khanna
Gargoyle staff reporter
Posted Thursday, Sept. 28, 2006, The OG, news

The next time an MTD bus passes by, give it a good look. You might just see some artwork by Joy Shapley.

The Uni sophomore is the grand-prize winner of the U-CYCLE Poster Contest, which celebrates the 20th anniversary of Urbana's residential curbside recycling program.

Shapley and the other contest winners were honored at an awards ceremony held Saturday as part of the U-CYCLE Fair at Lincoln Square Mall.

As grand-prize winner, Shapley received a $100 U.S. savings bond, a U-CYCLE goodie bag, and a T-shirt. She will also have her artwork displayed on 10 MTD buses operating in the Champaign-Urbana area. A specific date for when the buses will begin displaying the poster hasn't been announced.

Shapley heard about the contest from art teacher Lisa Evans.

“Ms. Evans was like, ‘I just got this thing about a poster contest, you can win $100, they don't have a lot of entries, and you have to live in Urbana; the catch is it's due tomorrow,'” Shapley recalled. “I didn't have a lot of time, so I just went home and worked on it for two hours with marker.”

The contest gave awards in the following categories:

— kindergarten through first grade
— second through third grade
— fourth grade through fifth grade

— sixth through eighth grade (middle school)
— ninth through 12th grade (high school)

Prizes were given to the top two finishers in each grade category. A grand-prize winner was chosen from among all of the first- and second-place winners. Shapley won the high school category.

“There was only one other entry in the high school competition,” she said, “so I thought that I would win the $50 they gave for that, but I didn't expect to be the overall winner.”

Entries were judged on their ability to incorporate one of the four recycling themes:

— The 4 R's (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rebuy), closing the loop!

— What U-CYCLE (recycling) means to me.
— Recycling is important to the environment!
— I recycle the following at school (or at home) …

Each poster needed to have artwork and text that conveyed a clear message, visual clarity, creativity, originality, and artistic quality. The posters had to be bright, colorful, and easily read.

Said Shapley: “The other posters weren't very original and their message wasn't very creative, and I had one with little cans, with eyes and mouths, which were dancing around. It was cute.”

Check below to see a copy of Shapley's winning poster. And remember to keep your eyes open for MTD buses bearing Uni artwork.

photos courtesy Joy Shapley