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.
Vans created the program to “inspire and empower high school students to embrace their creativity through art and design and bring attention to diminishing art education budgets,” a news release said.
The prompts for this year? “Head in the Clouds” and “Hometown Pride,” 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 “inspired by San Antonio.”
Students Maya Lopez and Baymika Wong added that they wanted to add a flair that looked good enough to eat.
“So, one of the things we thought of was pan dulce,” Lopez previously told KSAT. “And so that’s one of our main components here.”
Cedar Hill played on the Dallas skyline, cowboy boots and wildflowers for their customizations.