Student’s poster takes 3rd place

The fifth-grader at Custer Baker Intermediate School heard about the missing children from all over the world when she heard the statistics.

Addison Shockley thought of how miserable life must be for them and their families, and thought of how it would feel to be separated from her own family.

Shockley vowed to do something.

[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]

Click here to purchase photos from this gallery

“It makes me hurt, to think of how I would be without my family,” she said.

A poster she made for a statewide contest for fifth graders for the Indiana State Police placed third and she was honored this week with a ceremony at the Franklin Boys and Girls Club, where she is a member.

Six students from the Boys and Girl’s Club of Franklin participated in the statewide contest.

Her poster is a drawn picture of the world, with red and blue stripes on it to denote the American flag. Children are standing around the world, with children who are just outlined and not colored, meant to depict the number of missing children of the world. Her poster includes the message “Bring our missing children home.”

She got inspiration from a photo of the world with an American flag in the middle and from a heart poster hanging in a classroom that had children standing around it. She merged the two ideas and got to work outlining her design in pencil and going over it with brightly covered markers.

“I just did it for fun, I thought it would be awesome,” she said.

For two or three days she tweaked her design. She knew that it would be more appreciated the more work she put into it, she said.

“If you put more time and effort in, you can get something good,” Shockley said.

About 80 posters were submitted by students across the state, Indiana State Police First Sgt. Shea Reliford said.

What made Shockley’s poster stand out and earn a third-place award was the fact that she made it a point to get the tagline of the contest on her poster, Reliford said.

And she made an effort to recognize the missing children all over the world, instead of just locally, said Torie Harris, an administrative assistant for the Indiana State Police Indiana Clearinghouse for Information on Missing Children.

“For me, it was because she had the world,” she said.