The Federal Subsistence Board announced Friday that 9-year-old Reilly McCue of Ketchikan is the winner of its annual subsistence themed art contest.
“ I drew a crab and the legs and every part of the legs and the body I drew different designs and I colored it in with orange , red and yellow.”
Reilly’s colorful crab will serve as cover art for the 2015-2017 “Subsistence Management Regulation for the Harvest of Fish and Shellfish on Federal Public Lands and Waters in Alaska” book. Fourteen thousand copies of the book will be printed and distributed statewide starting with the new regulatory season on April 1st .
The board received more than 290 entries this year, which subsistence outreach coordinator Deborah Coble says is five and a-half times more than last year. “And it wasn’t just from one area, however Ketchikan did have the most entries at over a hundred.”
The contest was open to grades K – 12. Reilly and her art class at Tongass School of Arts and Sciences all entered crab drawings. She says she loves eating crab, but this was the first time she successfully drew one. Reilly says she smiled hearing her win on the morning school announcements. “It’s just a good feeling. It’s happy and excited and just feels good that you won.”
Reilly says her mom has plans to frame and hang the original at home.