San Benito High School Art Teacher Jon Robrock and junior Josh
Vega won awards at the 2008 International River of Words Youth
Environmental Poetry and Art Contest earlier this month.
San Benito High School Art Teacher Jon Robrock and junior Josh Vega won awards at the 2008 International River of Words Youth Environmental Poetry and Art Contest earlier this month.
Robrock won the “Teacher of the Year” award, and Vega won the U.S. Grand Prize in the Senior High School Art category. Vega did a pastel drawing titled “Polar Problem.”
Robrock has been teaching at San Benito High School since 2001. Vega has studied art with Robrock for two years and is currently in his advanced placement studio art class.
“We have a high standard here,” Robrock said.
For winning the contest Robrock and Vega will be going to Washington D.C. on May 12 with the other international winners. While in Washington, they will attend an awards ceremony.
The ceremony will be emceed by former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass, who is a recent Pulitzer Prize winner, according to a news release. The event will also include an art exhibit of this year’s winning art by children and youth from around the world, according to the news release.
There are four different age groups in the River of Words competition, which has one grand prize per age group. The groups are K-2, grades 3-6, grades 7-9 and grades 10-12.
Around 20,000 entries are received for the contest each year from every state and many foreign countries, according to the news release.
“I wish they had more contests around here,” he said.
In the past five years, San Benito High School students have won the U.S. Grand Prize in art four times. The high school had four state finalists last year, Robrock said.
This is the 13th year that the contest has been put on. Robrock is the first art teacher to win the Teacher of the Year award, he said.
The contest allows students to show art in the theme of the environment or in the scope of nature, he said.
To view this year’s art work or past year’s, go to
