History in a box: Eagle County students team up with Vail Daily for original works celebrating Colorado’s 150th, America’s 250th

What do you get when you blend national and state history with public art? Some remarkable Vail Daily newspaper boxes designed by local students.

Students from four Eagle County schools participated in a project this fall to celebrate the United States’ 250th anniversary, Colorado’s 150th anniversary and the spirit of each school.

The art departments at Eagle Valley High School, Vail Christian High School, Battle Mountain High School and Vail Mountain School were provided with newspaper racks for students to design. The Vail Daily also offered $300 in supplies for each box.

The students had until Oct. 24 to complete their boxes before Rick Spitzer of the Vail Valley Art Guild judged their works. Gift certificates from Sundae Ice Cream were awarded to students for first, second and third.

The Vail Valley Art Guild judged the racks based on expression of the theme, creativity and completeness. The winning design is now on display at each school — where it will remain through 2026 and into the future — to distribute papers, while the other racks will be used near the schools.

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Columbines, rams and Jolly Ranchers

To say students were excited about the project would be an understatement.

When asked about how her sixth-grade art students at Vail Mountain School felt about their completed works, Phoebe Brooks put it bluntly: “They were actually sad that it was over.”

Brooks said it took the nine students in her sixth-grade art class — working in teams of three — about four weeks to complete their projects. They worked through initial designs for the panels of the boxes while researching local, state and national history.

The winning box that is now displayed at the school, designed by Khandro Aungae, Zoe Barnes and Ferran Quiroga, pays tribute to the United States with panels displaying the Declaration of Independence, an astronaut on the moon, the Statue of Liberty, a soaring eagle and a crest celebrating the country’s 250th.

Brooks said Aungae, Barnes and Quiroga used a variety of techniques to complete the box, from hand-painting the astronaut and the Declaration of Independence panel to using a stencil for the Statue of Liberty that they blew up on a “Prometheus” board to trace on the box and then paint over. The crest was an AI-generated image they replicated.

“They had all the names of the people in the Declaration of Independence,” Brooks said. “I tried to actually get them to do the signatures as they were written, but that didn’t have all the signatures on there.”

For the box that celebrated Colorado’s 150^th, which took second place, Harper Rednor, Janson Zhang and Violet Rader painted symbols of Colorado — a bighorn sheep, columbines, mountain ranges and, of course, a Jolly Rancher. The students were excited to learn from their research about their home state that Jolly Rancher was founded in Colorado and that the candies were manufactured in Wheat Ridge up until 2002.

Spitzer, who once lived near the Wheat Ridge plant, told students that he remembered being able to smell which flavor of candy was being made at the plant on a certain day.

Peak talent at local high schools

At Vail Christian High School, 13 students participated to produce three original boxes that implemented elements of graphic design.

The winning box created by Edgar Landeros and Scarlet Ackerman includes logos of Colorado sports teams, the state’s famous green license plate and the school’s logo, all set against a backdrop of snowy mountains. There’s also a panel showcasing American history, such as Mount Rushmore, Route 66, George Washington, and the Capitol.

Eagle Valley High School art teacher Amanda Hawkins said students in two of the high school’s art classes asked for more boxes because three weren’t enough. The designs produced by the Devils blended school pride with state and national symbols.

Freshman Mia Whirley produced the winning box that will stay at the school. Her intricate hand-painted box, based on graphic elements, features Hot Stuff, the diapered devil that has long been the school’s mascot, along with mountain ranges, Mount Rushmore, and a bald eagle.  

Hawkins, who headed up the project with fellow art teacher Tara LaMotta, said for some students, it was their first time doing art on something other than canvas or paper, and doing so outside the classroom.  

That was certainly the case for freshman Owen Kienzle, one of the students who asked for an extra box after the school initially got three.

“For Owen, it was like his first time really painting,” Hawkins said. “He draws a lot, but hadn’t really painted before. So that was like a new thing to both be learning to paint and doing it on a functional piece of equipment.”

Hawkins said Eagle Valley students took about six weeks, start to finish, to complete their projects. They’d work on their boxes during free periods or after school, sanding and priming them before transferring their original designs from paper to metal.

“It was a neat experience,” Hawkins said. “Especially since COVID, we just haven’t had nearly as many of these kinds of events. I think it kind of just died off there for a couple of years. And this year has been bigger. We’ve had a couple of mural contests and some other stuff going on out in the community. It’s been really good exposure and good experience for them to have to think about, ‘what do we want people to see and how do people interact with this?’ I think they all really embraced the idea of like, ‘Yeah, I’m going to put my work out there and somebody’s going to pick.'”

The winning design at Battle Mountain High School was produced by eight different students: Robert Lewis, Beau Suman, Sofia Welchez Orellana, Lily Lamb, Kaylee Stoltz, Mackenzie Messmer, Nataly Olivas and Paloma Ortega Lopez. It includes fireworks over snowy mountain scenes and the Statue of Liberty being pulled on skis.

The second-place design, produced by Addison Kisker, Latvia Shirley, Daniela Saucedo Barboza, Kira Ebeling features a hand-painted cartoon of the school’s Husky mascot along with images of the state flag, skiers and an elk.

Brookes said the only thing better than designing Vail Daily boxes for the public to see was that students were rewarded with free ice cream from Sundae. She said the students in her class won enough Sundae cash to throw an ice cream party for the whole sixth grade.

Hopefully somebody brings some Jolly Ranchers, too.