The Harris County Department of Education has announced the regional award recipients of the 2024 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. Presented by the nonprofit organization The Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards are the country’s longest-running and most prestigious scholarship and recognition program for creative students in grades 7–12. 

This year, hundreds of thousands of teens submitted their best art and writing in more than 100 regions nationwide. A total of 15,886 works were submitted for consideration in Harris County, which is the second largest regional affiliate in the country for the program. From these submissions, more than 3,800 creative teens from Harris County received regional honors, including Gold Key, Silver Key, Honorable Mention, and American Visions & Voices nominations, including: 

Gold Key Awards — Writing, American Voices Nominees 

• Frida Buck, 10, St. Agnes Academy, work title: “52 Days” 
• Jayla Vongsy, 10, Cypress Woods High School, work title: “The Wife I Searched For” 
• Chi Pham, 12, Klein Forest High School, work title: “Second Banana” 
• Isabel Chung, 11, Pearland High School, work title: “Recollection is a Love Song” 
• Pearl Robertson, 10, Tomball High School, work title: “The Stone of Perfidia” 

Gold Key Awards — Art, American Visions Nominees 

• Roy Pinson, 11, Blanson Career and Technical Education High School, work title: “I’m Fine” 
• Shiruixue Fang, 10, Bridgeland High School, work title: “Wechselfälle” 
• Zahra Haque, 12, Westside High School, work title: “Shundor Din” 
• Aimee Wu, 10, Obra D. Tompkins High School, work title: “Invasion of Privacy” 
• Christopher McCord, 10, St. John’s School, work title: “Ode to Edward Hopper” 

An award signifies to parents, teachers, the community and colleges that a student is an accomplished artist or writer and offers creative teens the opportunity to earn recognition, exhibition, publication and up to $10,000 in scholarships. Works that receive Gold Key recognition at the regional level are automatically submitted for national adjudication.   

For the full list of 2024 awardees, updates and more information about the regional awards, please visit https://www.hcde-texas.org/scholastic2024/regionals.

The Scholastic Regional Award Celebration will honor awardees at 7 p.m. on May 7 & 8 at the University of Houston Cullen Performance Hall.