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Students Take Top Honors With Art
Car
By DAYNA WORCHEL. Longview News Journal
Friday, May 18, 2007
Longview and Pine Tree High School students toasted the competition
and took top honors last weekend in the youth division at the 20th annual
Houston Art Car Parade.
This was
the first year for Longview High School to win the top prize, after
finishing close a couple of times, including an
honorable mention in 2003 and finishing second in 2004.
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Kevin Green/News-Journal Photo
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Longview High School students
Michael Dotson, left, and Josh Burgdorff plug in
the toaster van Thursday that they entered in the Houston art car parade at the school in Longview.
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Their
winning entry, called Classic Toaster Van, won a trophy and $250. The project
was a joint production of the students in Jeffrey Hull's art class at Longview High School and students in Joel Laws auto body shop class from Pine Tree High School.
The Chevy
van was fashioned into a chrome toaster, complete with oversized Pop Tarts
that pop up through two slots in the roof.
A 15-foot
cord is attached to the van with an oversized wooden electric plug on the end
that rolls behind the van. There are also three setting buttons — reheat,
defrost and bagel — on the back door of the van.
The Longview High School art department bought a used van,
and the school's auto shop class got the engine running and the dents
repaired. Hull and his group constructed and
installed the toaster features, and Pine Tree High's auto body class did the
outside paint job and body work.
The Art
Car parade attracts more than 250 vehicles and other entries from 23 states
and Canada, an audience of 200,000 and a
television audience of 225,000.
Parade entries include anything on
wheels, from unicycles to lawnmowers to cars, and are made by the general
public as well as recognized artists.
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