Honorable Mention - Elementary
Bixby Middle School, Bixby

Don't Worry! It Dries Clear!

Live, Learn, Work, Pray, and Play. That was the code we had to crack. Shuffling into Mrs. Bundy's room after school one bright Friday afternoon, we set our minds to the task at hand. We shouted out our ideas -- some great, some not so great -- and finally conjured up a winning thought. We drew out the plan on our whiteboard and were firmly determined to work. As more Fridays passed, we chiseled the idea down to our notion of perfection. We brainstormed, we explored our community, and we worked on the board until our brains were raw.

Brainstorming was the most difficult task of all. We spewed opinions and sudden epiphanies that were just as soon shot down by logic or better ideas. We soon had named every landmark in Bixby and drawn a web on the board. Then, Maddie Clark came up with a stroke of genius after many hours of idea building. Glass was the solution. Finally, we were able to visualize our project. Bethany Wallis decided on the horizon, while Jillian Branch determined shadow and building positioning. Matt McDowell suggested placing pictures of working, playing, praying, learning, and living behind the stained glass. Then, the actual project.

We hurried into the GTO (Gifted and Talented Organization) room on the next Friday. We took out a three-by-five sheet of paper and decided to draw the picture to scale. We measured out the three-inch border and drew our straight lines and our buildings. We colored our areas with the colors for our stained glass and drew our little pumpkin patch. Next came the painting.

Painting was one of the more tedious tasks. We stared at the rough draft and decided finally on the perfect colors. We were going to paint only about half of it, but it needed to look good. We intricately painted the yellow sun and the blue sky, while managing to paint each other and ourselves in the process. We stood back and admired our half of the colorful picture. Soon we were disturbed by the sound of breaking glass.

Our teachers, Mrs. Bundy and Mrs. Sonnenfeld, set to work on breaking the 12x12 pieces of glass for our mosaic. As they pulverized the tissue-paper covered glass with a screwdriver, we hoped desperately they weren't taking out any anger left over from their classes. We took sponge-brushes and dipped them into one of our many cans of Mod-Podge. Spreading the adhesive carefully, we cleverly came up with our slogan. "Don't worry! It dries clear!" After every coat of Mod-Podge, our slogan was chanted. We laid the bits of broken colored glass into just the right place. We then coated the glass with a thin layer of more Mod-Podge, and were given our next assignment.

"Take pictures of family, friends, churches, schools, and places of business," instructed Mrs. Bundy and Mrs. Sonnenfeld. Everyone went home and took pictures of their youth groups, their parents and families, workplaces, schools, and sporting events. At our next work session, we took the black and white photographs and cut them into pieces that we estimated would fit perfectly. We then pasted them onto our board with our lucky Mod-Podge. We put a thin coat over these pictures, and then added the appropriate-colored glass. Another coat of Mod-Podge. "Don't worry! It dries clear!" Mrs. Bundy and Mrs. Sonnenfeld took individual pictures of us and placed our smiling faces in the windows of these hometown sites. We added an American flag in front of our school show community patriotism. Photos were continuously taken to document our hard work.

The church in our collage is the Regular Baptist Church, which is located in the heart of Bixby. Our pumpkins are the very ones on sale every fall just in time for Halloween. Brown Elementary School is just a few blocks from our Middle School. Our house resembles the many homes in our little suburb. Our widely sold sod that makes us famous is nourished by the Arkansas River that meanders through Bixby.

We learned a good deal from our Collage 2004 participation. We explored our community and found out things about Bixby we hadn't known before (Who knew Bixby had a train station?) While taking pictures, we recognized the value of our small city. Through our mistakes, we all became less artistically challenged and more creative, while discovering a new appreciation for our town, Bixby.

- Bethany Wallis, GTO member