Two SHS Seniors Earn National Visual Arts Honors

Starkville High School seniors, Sachiko Clay and Willie McGee have earned nationwide honors within the visible arts for his or her pictures work. Sachiko Clay has been acknowledged as a 2026 Young Art Award Winner with Distinction in Visual Arts by the YoungArts program for 15- to 18-year-olds. In addition, Willie McGee has been named a 2025 National Scholastic Gold Medalist by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards program.

Both seniors have earned a number of regional, nationwide and worldwide awards throughout their highschool profession and are energetic members within the SHS Visual Arts program below the instruction of award-winning instructor, Andrew Lark.

Willie McGee is a nationwide Gold Medalist within the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, a nationwide competitors within the inventive arts hosted yearly since 1923 by the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers. Nearly 110,000 college students throughout the United States and Canada entered this yr’s competitors, and solely 2.5% of scholars coming into work have been awarded gold medals, making Willie certainly one of solely 2800 college students throughout the continent to obtain this honor. The Scholastic Art program goals to create pupil alternatives for recognition, exhibition, publication and scholarships in inventive expression.

During his highschool profession, Willie has earned a number of gold and silver awards within the state Scholastic Art program and Mississippi Beta artwork competitors. He earned a 2nd place National Beta Award in Photography in 2024.

Sachiko Clay has been named a 2026 Young Art Award Winner with Distinction in Visual Arts by the YoungArts nationwide competitors. More than 12,700 college students utilized for awards by this system in 2026 and solely 171 have been awarded the Winner with Distinction honor. Among these, solely 20 have been awarded the Visual Arts Distinction. Sachiko is the one pupil from Mississippi to earn this award. Young Arts is a nationwide basis for the development of artists established in 1981 to establish and honor distinctive younger artists. The extremely aggressive software for Tenth-Twelfth graders within the United States is adjudicated by an expert workforce of discipline-specific artists. As an Award Winner with Distintion, Sachiko is eligible to be nominated as a U.S. Presidential Scholar within the Arts.

During her highschool profession, Sachiko has earned a number of statewide Scholastic gold and silver awards and Beta competitors awards. She has obtained 1st place within the third District Mississippi Congressional Art Competition and Best of Show within the Mississippi Beta competitors. In addition, she has been honored internationally by acceptance into the 2023 International Travelers Photography competitors and her work was named Best of Show on the National Beta Competition in 2024.

Arts schooling within the Starkville Oktibbeha Consolidated School District is offered to college students starting in PreK, and college students could enroll in arts electives starting in sixth grade. Advanced instruction in visible arts, drawing, pictures and ceramics is offered to college students starting in ninth grade, and the Starkville High School visible arts program yearly produces statewide, nationwide and worldwide award-winners. Through award-winning and complete instruction, college students taking part within the SHS visible arts program have earned scholarships to proceed their research in esteemed schools throughout the nation, together with the Rhode Island School of Design and Savannah College of Art and Design and University of Virginia.