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TEN SLEEP – Grace Gertsch, who will be a sophomore this fall at Ten Sleep High School, won an award from Google after submitting her drawing for the Doodle for Google contest for eighth to ninth grade students across Wyoming.

Gertsch's drawing was selected as the Doodle for Google Wyoming winner along with the winners from the other states and territories. People will be able to vote for their favorite drawing soon.

As a state winner she received Google hardware, a congratulatory message from Google and Google swag. She and the other 53 state and territory winners will have their doodles featured on the Doodle for Google gallery.

National finalists earn a $5,000 college scholarship and the national winner earns a $30,000 college scholarship and a $50,000 technology package for their school or non-profit organization.

Gertsch said that she found out about the contest from her art teacher, Dustin Stephenson, and knowing it was his last year before retirement, she didn't want to disappoint him.

"I was talking to my mom about it and she was pressuring me like, 'come on, Grace, you got to get this done. So I finished the drawing and I went to her, I sent it to her, we argued a little bit. You know, teenage girl and her mom stuff," Gertsch laughed. "We hopped on the computer and my mom was asking me all these questions and I was not for it, but I'm super glad I did submit it and I'm super glad that I did it with my mom because if I hadn't, I probably would've messed it up."

The prompt for the contest was "How do you take care of yourself?" Gertsch said her inspiration came from COVID-19 pandemic.

"My brain went to 'how do I take care of myself when times are super hard?' And my mind went to the pandemic, which I thought I would do better with. I was like, 'oh! Self-isolating, I get to stay in my room!' But that's not how it went at all," Gertsch said. "It took a big toll on my mental and physical health, so I thought of how I took care of myself then, and it was talking to my friends on the computer and doing my art and stuff like that. That's kind of what helps me stay mentally OK in those times."

She added, "I had to come to terms with I'm staying in my house, I'm in a small town with a population of 200 people and there are people in bigger cities that can't get away from each other that are dying, so I had to cope with that. So I took care of myself by talking to my friends. I put them on the computer in the drawing. I had my entire desk in the drawing. I just really wanted to focus on how we can be connected, but still be so far away that we're safe."

This is Gertsch's first time entering this competition.

"I thought about entering it the last time they had a competition, but I just didn't get around to doing it, I guess."

Gertsch has been doing art as a serious past time since she was 12 years old, when she illustrated her first children's book. The book is called "Wonderful" and is written by local author Angela Smart-Hetzel.

Gertsch said receiving the award felt pretty awesome.

"It's definitely an ego-boost, which I'm not sure is a good thing or a bad thing in my case, but, it feels amazing and I'm so glad that I've gotten to the point where I am with my passion."

Voting information on the contest was unavailable at press time. More information will be published as it becomes available. People can check online at https://doodles.google.com/d4g/ for up-to-date information on voting. Voting will help determine the national finalists. A panel of Google employees select the national winner among the five national finalists (one for each age group - K-3, grades 4-5, grades 6-7, grades 8-9, grades 10-12).