Madisyn Quinn creates winning Tar Wars poster

PRINCETON/LADD — A fifth-grade student at Ladd Community Consolidated School has won the 2010 Tar Wars billboard contest.

Madisyn Quinn won the competition, using a clown and No-Smoking design for her poster. Madisyn’s poster will be made into a billboard which will be erected in various locations around the Bureau County area. The winning design will also be printed on T-shirts which will be given to the top 20 contest winners. An estimated 240 students submitted posters in this year’s annual local contest.

As the Bureau County winner, Madisyn has also qualified to have her poster entered into the statewide poster contest.

The annual Tar Wars tobacco-free educational program and poster contest is organized and hosted by the Bureau/Putnam County Health Department in Princeton for all fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms.

On Monday, Emily Happ with the Bureau/Putnam County Health Department said the Tar Wars program focuses on the short-term effects of tobacco use, the financial implications of tobacco use, and the reasons people begin or continue to use tobacco products.

The classroom portion of the Tar Wars program includes a variety of activities, such as having students do breathing exercises with straws to demonstrate how smoking decreases lung volume, Happ said. Students also learn about other effects of using tobacco products, such as yellow teeth and bad breath, difficulty running and breathing, messy ashes and cigarette butts, coughing and premature wrinkles, she said.

The students also discuss the cost of smoking, based on one day, a month, a year and a lifetime. The students also identify and understand the reasons people begin smoking and why some people seem to continue to use tobacco products, Happ said.

The effectiveness of the Tar Wars program is evident by the facts which students remember from the previous year, Happ said.

“I love the Tar Wars program, and the kids love it,” Happ said. “The kids actively participate during class and look forward to the program each year. This age group is so creative with their poster ideas and very enthusiastic about the program. They ask questions which makes me feel like my short time in the classroom with them is worthwhile.”