Ruben on the Road: Silverton student wins t-shirt design contest for Donor Days blood drive

SILVERTON, Texas (KFDA) - A Silverton High School student recently was the winner of a t-shirt design contest hosted by the Coffee Memorial Blood Center.

Riley Gore, the winner, will also be given a $500 scholarship. She said that her teacher for their 11h grade digital media class enters them into design contests, but this was the first t-shirt design contest.

“We’ve done video contests and she had posted that we were going to enter this t-shirt contest,” Gore said. “I was super excited because I like to be really creative.”

Coffee Memorial Blood Center Event Manager Misti Newsom said the contest was for schools in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles.

“We did things a little differently this year because we wanted to get students more involved and we wanted the shirt to be something that was made by a kid of their age,” Newsom said. “We actually had a ton of entries which was really cool.”

The contest was part of Donor Days, which is a blood drive put on by the Coffee Memorial Blood Center and Kids Inc. Gore’s teacher said this contest was new for her students.

“This is a class that our juniors take and we are really excited about pushing the bar and having new experiences. We had never entered in a t-shirt design contest at all. It was something that was very new to us,” said Jolee Dietrich, business and tech teacher at Silverton High School.

Gore described what winning meant to her.

“Our school doesn’t get a whole lot of recognition with some things because we are a very small town, but just thinking about how many schools entered into this contest and the fact that they liked my design that much, that they picked me over everyone else — I was mind blown,” Gore said.

Newsom said they received a positive outcome with the t-shirt design contest.

“It was huge to have such great feedback on the shirt contest and how many of the schools really enjoyed that,” she said. “I’m sure we’ll have a lot of participation in that again next year. It’ll be something that we do from now on.”

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