MORGANTOWN — The Panthers of North Elementary gathered in their gymnasium on Tuesday, the last day of school, to surprise and celebrate a classmate who entered the annual Doodle 4 Google competition.
Ava Monroe, 10, a fourth-grader, was selected as the competition’s West Virginia winner and her doodle will compete in a public vote against the other 49 states, Guam, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico to determine five national finalists.
Every year the contest has a theme, and for 2019 the theme was “When I grow up I hope to …,” according to Robin Deguara, a Google employee who flew in from Google’s Mountain View, Calif., headquarters, to announce Monroe’s win. Another Google employee, Dannie Lynn Fountain, came to Morgantown from Chicago to be at the ceremony.
“Whenever I heard ‘When I grow up I hope,’ I thought that I wanted to be an actress and I wanted the world to be clean,” Monroe said. Her doodle, which depicts her looking out over a sunset, was inspired by her desire to see a cleaner world — that means less trash in our streets and in our oceans.
Fountain and Deguara presented Monroe with a one-of-a-kind T-shirt featuring her doodle, a Chromebook and a tote.
Monroe said she went through several doodles before submitting her winning drawing. Drawing is something she enjoys and she learned some new techniques, such as everything in a drawing should connect to the theme, while coming up with her doodle.
“She was convinced she was going to win from the beginning,” Monroe’s dad, Jeff, said.
The five finalists will win a trip to Google headquarters and a $5,000 scholarship. The national winner will be selected by judges Jimmy Fallon, Kermit the Frog and Mandy Manning, the 2018 National Teacher of the Year. The national winner will have his or her doodle featured on Google’s homepage, receive a $30,000 scholarship and the winner’s school will receive a $50,000 technology package.
Voting for the five finalists begins June 3 at doodle4google.com and ends June 7. People can cast one vote per device per day.
Monroe is North Elementary’s second state winner in the Doodle 4 Google contest. Tarannom Rajaee, a second-grader, was selected as the West Virginia winner in 2017.
