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Vans names Edison High School as runner-up in nationwide shoe art contest; school given $15,000

Edison High School was top five, but ultimately lost the competition to Louisiana school

SAN ANTONIO – Edison High School may have lost the Vans Custom Culture shoe art competition, but they still came out with a prize.

Vans announced the group of San Antonio students came in as a runner-up in the 12th year of the contest, ranking among the top five most creative high schools in the nation to enter the competition.

As runner-up, they’ll still receive a prize of $15,000 for the Bears’ art program. The other Texas school in the challenge, Cedar Hill High School in North Texas, was also listed as a runner-up.

In its virtual announcement Thursday afternoon, Vans named Fontainebleau High School from Mandeville, Louisiana as the winner. Those students took the grand prize of $50,000.

Fontainebleau High School's submissions for the Vans Custom Culture competition. The Louisiana school ended up winning the contest. (Vans)

Vans created the program to ā€œinspire and empower high school students to embrace their creativity through art and design and bring attention to diminishing art education budgets,ā€ a news release said.

The prompts for this year? ā€œHead in the Cloudsā€ and ā€œHometown Pride,ā€ Vans said.

The San Antonio students used iconic Alamo City imagery, like flower crowns, the River Walk, pan dulce and Fiesta colors, for their hometown design.

Rogelio Zamarripa, a junior at the school and the lead artist for the project, told KSAT that his shoes were ā€œinspired by San Antonio.ā€

Students Maya Lopez and Baymika Wong added that they wanted to add a flair that looked good enough to eat.

ā€œSo, one of the things we thought of was pan dulce,ā€ Lopez previously told KSAT. ā€œAnd so that’s one of our main components here.ā€

Cedar Hill played on the Dallas skyline, cowboy boots and wildflowers for their customizations.

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