Powell student wins Best of Show for state duck stamp contest

Posted 5/23/24

Powell High School junior Sophia Petrie is a seasoned pro when it comes to the Junior Duck Stamp Contest. Petrie has entered a painting for the past three years and placed at the state level each …

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Powell student wins Best of Show for state duck stamp contest

This year’s Best of Show Junior Duck Stamp of two hooded mergansers was painted by none other than Powell High School junior Sophia Petrie. For the past three years Petrie has placed at the state level; she last won Best of Show during the 2021-2022 school year.
This year’s Best of Show Junior Duck Stamp of two hooded mergansers was painted by none other than Powell High School junior Sophia Petrie. For the past three years Petrie has placed at the state level; she last won Best of Show during the 2021-2022 school year.
Photo courtesy Jim Gilman
Posted

Powell High School junior Sophia Petrie is a seasoned pro when it comes to the Junior Duck Stamp Contest. Petrie has entered a painting for the past three years and placed at the state level each year. This time, Petrie won Best of Show in Wyoming for the second time and placed within the top 15 students nationally.

Petrie’s winning duck, chosen in April, was actually a painting of two ducks — she chose to paint two hooded mergansers on a serene pond.

Her duck beat out 126 other entries from K-12 students in the state of Wyoming, according to a release from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Petrie’s art is currently traveling on the national level and will not be returned to her until next year, she said. 

Alongside her state title Petrie was also given a gift package including notebooks, acrylic paints, watercolor pencils, books on ducks and a book on how to paint and draw animals in the wild. 

Petrie has chosen a different medium each year, she said, not because her teacher made her but to match each duck. This year she chose to use oil paints in order to get the waterscape to look the way she wanted.

“I really wanted my water to stand out and kind of be more smooth [with less] ripples and everything and kind of create more of a sunset kind of vibe or sunrise kind of thing … and so I thought that oil paint would be best to do that,” Petrie said.

She chose to paint the merganser’s after looking at what other students chose — she wanted her ducks to stand out and liked the feathers on the top of the duck’s heads.

“It was really easy to make a lot of texture with those,” she said. 

While Petrie did win at the state level she has yet to go further on the national level — next year she hopes to change that.

“I mean I was really proud of myself, I was kind of disappointed last year when I only got third place. I was hoping to at least get first place again, it’s just helping me to drive further and hopefully place higher on the national level even next year,” Petrie said. 

More about the Junior Duck Stamp contest can be found here: fws.gov/program/junior-duck-stamp/junior-duck-stamp-contest-information.

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