COOKEVILLE — Kayla Padgett, a resident in our Celina community who won the national grand prize last year in the National Association of Housing & Redevelopment Officials (NAHRO) “What Home Means to Me” poster contest, enjoyed an all-expense-paid trip with her grandmother, Becky Padgett, to the NAHRO Legislative Conference, held in Washington, D.C., in April.

In addition to attending the conference, Kayla and her grandmother got to tour several sites in Washington and met Congressman Diane Black. They enjoyed staying in a very nice hotel close to the Capitol, and Kayla was given a $500 savings bond.

When Kayla created her poster design last year, she had no idea where it would lead her. Her poster was placed on the cover of the NAHRO 2013 calendar and was the featured art for the month of January. The calendar is distributed all across the nation and will be placed permanently on file in the National Archives.

The NAHRO poster contest is underway once again. Our resident children in grades K through 12 turned in some wonderful entries in May, and judges chose three local winners whose creations will compete at the state level and then possibly the national level. National winners for 2013 will be announced in September.

For more information about the “What Home Means to Me” poster contest, call Shaquawana Wester at 526-9793, ext. 213, or Kathy Smith at ext. 212.

Photo Caption:
Prize-Winning Poster

Kayla Padgett, left, and her grandmother, Becky Padgett, stand with Kayla’s poster design, which won the national grand prize in the 2012 National Association of Housing & Redevelopment Officials (NAHRO) “What Home Means to Me” poster contest.