ERIK SANZENBACH / L’Observateur / February 26, 2000

LAPLACE – Seventeen-year-old Ashley Fallon says she has never won anything before.

“Well, I’ve never won an art contest before,” she says with a smile.

Well, her days of not winning are over.

Recently, Ashley, a senior at East St. John High School, was named one offive finalists in the Teen Yearbook 2000 competition.

She is in competition with five other teen-agers across the country in the Most Artistic category of the competition.

The idea of the contest is to pick six people in the country to be put in Teen magazine’s 2000 yearbook. The categories are Most Likely to Succeed, MostArtistic, Coolest Couple, Best Look for 2000 and Beyond, Trendiest and Biggest Heart.

Ashley, a talented art student at East St. John High, said the whole thingstarted out as a class project.

“Our teacher wanted us to do a painting that mocked a famous artist,” said Ashley, “So I used markers to make a parody of the Lichenstein style.”Lichenstein is famous for combining dots to make a picture like in a comic book.

Ashley then read about the contest in Teen and sent in her art work. Teenthen scanned Ashley’s drawing into a computer and put it on its website where web surfers could vote on it. Ashley made it into the final five, beatingout over 100,000 other aspiring young artists in the country.

“I didn’t think it was true,” Ashley said of her first reaction. “Teen called upand Dad came to school to tell me. I really didn’t believe it at first.”If Ashley wins, Teen will feature her in its April issue and her art work will be seen by millions of people.

Now, Ashley is asking all her friends, schoolmates and everybody else in the River Parishes to vote for her on the net. Just go to www.etalentbase.comand vote for Ashley. The deadline is Feb. 28, 2000.Ashley has been into art as long as she can remember. When she graduatesfrom high school she would like to go to either LSU or Southeastern Louisiana University and pursue a degree in computer graphics.

When not endeavoring to be the next Picasso or O’Keefe, Ashley plays either goalie or center mid for the East St. John High girl’s soccer team. She alsolikes to bowl with her girlfriends.

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