AURORA | The sight of a bus sitting in a school parking lot on a Monday afternoon is a welcome one for many an exhausted middle school student, weary after the first day of the post-weekend grind.
But, a bus sitting in the parking lot of Aurora Frontier P-8 School earlier this week brought about a reaction a bit more raucous than the typical end-of-day sigh of relief.
Cheers erupted from hundreds of middle and elementary schoolers Dec. 8 as a sheet was pulled from the side of a polished RTD bus, revealing a vibrant design that sported images of flying slices of pizza and Rocket Popsicles.
The fanfare was the culminating result of the “I heart my RTD” art contest, a new initiative sponsored by RTD to drum up interest for Denver’s constantly growing regional transportation system.
“When we envisioned this, we saw it as a chance to educate kids about public transit,” Claudia Folksa, RTD board director said in a statement. “With all of the expansion of transit that we will be seeing in the metro area in the next few years, it’s important to understand how safety and transit come together and play a role in all of our everyday lives.”
Over 2,400 students from the Cherry Creek and Aurora Public School districts participated in the first-of-its kind event, which asked students to submit works of art using the contest theme “My world. My art. My RTD,” to RTD in hopes of earning the top prize: having their work blown up and displayed on the side of an RTD bus for thousands in the metro area to see.
Frontier 8th graders Jenna Braun and Madison Baxter were the winners from APS, chosen through a voting process in October.
“It’s absolutely incredible, like a dream come true,” Braun said.
Both Braun and Baxter were honored at the unveiling Dec. 8, posing for photos with Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan in front of their 40-foot design. Braun said that she and Baxter tried to depict all of the places RTD can take you – to music lessons or to grab a slice of pizza – in their piece.
“I am so proud of all of these fabulous young artists that participated in this contest,” Thad McCauley, Braun and Baxter’s art teacher at Frontier, said in a statement.
He added that seeing a hand-drawn piece of artwork on an RTD bus may be a pleasant surprise for passerby along bus routes across the metro region.
“Buses usually blend in with the city scape, but if one rolls in with a huge crazy decal with a flying pizza, I think that will bring a lot of joy to people’s day,” he said. “I’m sure too, not many people will think that this is designed by two eighth-grade girls, they’ll be surprised by that.”
The contest winner from the Cherry Creek School District, a student at Fox Ridge Middle School in Aurora, was honored with a bus-unveiling ceremony at Fox Ridge on Dec. 9. Winners from both districts will be honored at the next RTD board meeting Dec. 16, when the bus will be parked nearby for all board members to see.
Contest entrants who did not win the grand prize will still have their artwork displayed in some of RTD’s 400 buses in the advertising spaces that run along the ceiling.