By Anna Guido
Enquirer contributor

MASON - Superintendent Kevin Bright has a generous way of encouraging budding artists. And it appears to be working.

Mason School superintendent Kevin Bright presents a $25.00 check to Sydney Carr. (Glenn Hartong photo)

"That is some clown for a first-grader," Bright told 7-year-old Jordan Collins at a reception Thursday before handing the Mason Heights Elementary student a personal check for $25.

Jordan's response upon receiving the check for his oil pastel and acrylic painting: "Cool!"

Jordan and 16 other students representing each grade level in the district of 8,700 had their artwork personally selected by Bright to adorn his office for one year.

Bright pays each student $25 for the work, then returns it after one year. It's something Bright has done for each of his six years at the helm of this Warren County school district.

"I love art - not just visual, but performing arts, too," he said. "This is just one thing I can do to enhance interest and provide incentive and to make kids understand that they can make money doing art."

Along with enrollment, Bright said the arts in Mason schools have grown and developed.

"Our art program has exploded over the years and our students are winning awards everywhere."

Bright's selections this year included a ceramic tea set, a watercolor, a pen and ink drawing, an Oaxacan woodcarving and a computer-graphics piece by his own daughter, Logan, an eighth-grader at Mason Middle School.

Mason High junior Andy Rowland, 17, who won several local and national awards this year for his artwork (including two national awards for school newspaper cartoons), captured Bright's eye for art with a watercolor landscape of boats, mountains and trees.

"Remember this face, because he could be the next Jim Borgman," Bright said, shaking Andy's hand. Borgman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist for the Enquirer.

Andy's art teacher, Beth Eline, further commended her student.

"Watercolor is most unforgiving and one of the hardest mediums to work with," Eline said. "If you make a mistake with watercolor, everybody is going to see it."

Andy said any recognition of his artwork feels good. But the superintendent's program is particularly "awesome" because it's a recognized gallery viewed by people you see every day.

It was the first thing that caught Maggie Moschell's attention when interviewing for an art teacher job three years ago.

"I don't know of any (other superintendents) who do anything like this for the arts," she said. "This money comes out of his own pocket and he speaks from the heart when he tells students what their artwork made him think of and how it made him feel."

Chosen

These students' works were chosen at the district art show this month for display the coming year:

Sandy Lee, kindergarten, Mason Early Childhood Center

Jordan Collins, grade 1, Mason Heights Elementary

Sydney Carr, grade 2, Western Row Elementary

Paige Richie, grade 3, Western Row Elementary

Emma Headley, grade 4, Mason Intermediate School

Ronald Swonger, grade 5, Mason Intermediate School

Emily Stephens, grade 6, Mason Intermediate School

Nathan Fisher, grade 7, Mason Middle School

Evan Schwartz, grade 7, Mason Middle School

Logan Bright, grade 8, Mason Middle School

Spencer Hewes, grade 8, Mason Middle School

Tyler Conner, grade 8, Mason Middle School

Megan Pfeil, grade 9, Mason High School

Tiffany Lien, grade 10, Mason High School

Rachel Whitaker, grade 10, Mason High School

Andy Rowland, grade 11, Mason High School

Krissie Cummings, grade 12, Mason High School

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