A sixth grader from Lennox will represent South Dakota in the "Doodle 4 Google" challenge.
Kathryn Loewe's entry was selected out of hundreds of submissions as the best in the state. She was honored Thursday afternoon at an assembly at Lennox Elementary School. U.S. Senator Mike Rounds was on hand to congratulate Loewe on her award.
She will now move on to compete against winners from 49 other states, Puerto Rico, Guam, and Washington D.C.
Charlotte Smith with Google says this year's theme asked participants to draw a doodle about what inspired them. She says Loewe's artwork focused on the importance of science, technology, engineering, and math education.
"It's a fun lab experiment. She was really creative with the letters, with her Google letters within the doodle. She really speaks to her passion about STEM. In her caption, she says STEM is one of the most important things to learn," Smith says.
Smith says judges will narrow the field to four finalists. Those four will win a $5,000 college scholarship and a trip to Google's headquarters in California. The National Winner gets a $30,000 scholarship. The winner's school receives a $50,000 technology award from Google. Smith says schools have flexibility with how they can utilize the funds.
"In the past we've seen some schools use the technology grant for new computers in the computer lab, we've seen some schools use it for personal devices like tablets, we've even seen some schools use the tech grant for things like improving their internet infrastructure. So, we really want to leave it open ended so it can meet the needs of the school it's going to," Smith says.
This is the tenth year of the "Doodle 4 Google" contest. Smith says the company will announce the national winner next month.