HELENA – A fifth-grade student from Gardiner was honored in Helena on Monday for her artwork bringing attention to missing children in Montana.
Kali Hubbard won the state’s annual Bring Our Missing Children Home poster contest.
Montana Attorney General Tim Fox and Superintendent of Public Instruction Elsie Arntzen presented her with an award certificate and a $100 prize.
ExplorationWorks, which is usually closed on Monday, hosted the ceremony.
Kali’s poster depicts a scrapbook of family photos, with one child removed from the images.
“Her poster underscores the fact that there are children that go missing and we want them to be reunited with their families,” Fox said.
Her winning entry will now be submitted into the nationwide Bring Our Missing Children Home contest.
Fox said about 60 school-age Montana children are missing today, many of them teenagers.
This is the tenth year the Montana Department of Justice has sponsored the poster contest.
Fox said it’s important to get students thinking about ways to stay safe, especially online.
“We find that the fifth-grade age group is an age-appropriate time in which to have these conversations with their parents and their teachers,” he said. “It’s been tremendously effective in keeping our Montana kids safe.”
Kali, her family and the other 13 members of Jeanne Johnson’s fifth-grade class were all able to come to Helena for Monday’s ceremony, thanks to financial support from the Gardiner Bruins Booster Club.
After touring ExplorationWorks, the students also visited the Montana State Capitol.
