Berwick students back-to-back winners in state poster contest

For the second straight year, a Berwick High School art student has won a statewide poster contest, and the poster will serve as the program cover for Louisiana’s state championship football games.

Berwick High senior Chloe’ Cortez’s artwork was selected from more than 100 submissions in the state as winner of the 2018 Louisiana High School Athletic Association Prep Classic Poster Contest. Cortez is the daughter of Courtney Saujon and Clint Cortez.

Her poster will serve as the official poster and program cover for the 2018 Allstate Sugar Bowl/LHSAA Prep Classic at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, an LHSAA news release said.

In addition, on Dec. 7, she will be presented with a framed copy of the poster during halftime of the Class 3A championship game. She will also receive free Raising Cane’s for a year and a $100 cash prize, the release said.

Cortez, 17, entered the contest for the first time this year and has been in St. Mary Parish’s talented visual arts program since fifth grade.

Her close friend, Wyatt Gonzales, a 2018 Berwick High graduate, won the 2017 poster contest. Alicia Garner, a talented visual arts teacher at Berwick High, taught Gonzales and teaches Cortez.

“For Berwick High School to have the student providing the winning design two years in a row, it speaks volumes for Ms. Garner and the talented arts program in the district,” Principal Paul Broussard said.

Cortez is the third student from the Tri-City area to win the contest within the past five years as Robert David of Patterson High won the 2014 contest.

Cortez created what would eventually become the 2018 winning poster during her sophomore year, but chose not to enter the LHSAA poster contest until this year because she didn’t want to compete against Gonzales, she said.

So this year, she retrieved the original design from her portfolio and decided to use the design to enter the 2018 contest.

“That design has been sitting in a portfolio folder for two years. It even had 2016 on it,” Garner said.

Cortez had the idea to place a lamp post and Bourbon Street style sign on the poster, which is what she thought of to represent New Orleans, Garner said.

“I told her two years ago … that’s a great idea,” Garner said.

The poster design “just screams, you know the game is in New Orleans because of the iconic street sign,” Garner said.

Cortez’s family is “very artistic,” and Cortez is interested in culture, Cortez said.

Garner says Cortez always has great ideas, but she has many unfinished pieces of artwork due to either boredom or a struggle to come up with the final part of a design.

Though Cortez enjoys creating art, she doesn’t plan to try to make a career out of that passion. She plans to major in nursing at Nicholls State University. But she might still take some art classes in college, she said.