I'm beginning to like this place

Two Brownsville students win ketchup contest
By Ildefonso Ortiz/The Brownsville Herald

A love of art and fond memories of the beach helped a Brownsville second-grader come up with an advertising design that beat thousands of others and will be used in approximately 19 million ketchup packets.

Marcela Salinas, 8, could barely hold her excitement Tuesday as she was called in front of her schoolmates at St. Mary's Catholic School, to be presented with a special ketchup bottle naming her the second grade winner of the 2009 Heinz Ketchup Creativity Contest. The contest awarded one prize per grade, from elementary through high school.

Salinas and Nia-Isabella Garza, a first-grade student at Hudson Elementary School, each won their respective grade at the national contest that had a record 45,000 entries. Judges selected 36 drawings out of all the entries and voting was done online to select the winner per each grade, the company said.

"This is the first time that someone from South Texas wins," said Heinz spokesman Stuart Jaynes. "They (the two Brownsville girls) beat out approximately 12,000 entries in their division."

The winning drawings will be used as art for next year's ketchup packets, approximately 19 million packets per drawing or winner per grade, Jaynes said.

"Children use a lot of ketchup," he said. "This is a fun way for them to get creative and play with ketchup."

Wow! The Valley region really had me pegged when they published this story about ketchup. I mean what better way to appeal to me than by having two of their area's best students win a Ketchup design contest...and for Heinz no less. I swear (and I really mean it) if the BYB takes off and I become wealthy I promise to pay for these two kids' tuition. And if I end up being a washout I'll somehow arrange some scholarship to UTB. Either way these ketchup lovers are getting something.