WAEF Announces Apple Art Winners

Last week, the Washington Apple Education Foundation announced the winners of the 2025 Year of the Apple Art Contest sponsored by Corteva Agriscience.  This year, 45 submissions were received from high school students across central Washington.  Entries from 9th-12th grade students were received in a wide range of mediums, including colored pencils, acrylic paint, alcohol markers, watercolors, pastels, gouache paint, pencil, and oil paint.

Congratulations to the grand prize winner, senior Lesli Badillo Hernandez of A.C. Davis High School in Yakima.  Her piece, Autumn and All Its Glory, created using colored pencils, earned her a $1,000 prize.

The second place winner is senior Milan Ly of West Valley High School in Yakima for her oil painting Within the Apple Tree, which earned her a $500 prize.  Third place went to Eastmont High School senior Emma Sotelo for her alcohol marker piece Wenatchee Best Workers, receiving a $250 prize.   

Art departments at each of the winners’ high schools will receive a $150 gift card.

A panel of judges from the tree fruit industry carefully reviewed the artwork and selected the winners.  In addition to artistic style, the judges were looked for apples representative of Washington’s world class fruit.

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