While much of the coverage ahead of the March 4 General Election featured the candidates running for office, two lesser-known figures too young to vote played a big role on Election Day.
Rory Ensweiler and Gregorio Landaluce, both elementary school students at Mt. Eccles, are the brains behind the two “I voted” stickers that poll workers handed out during the election.
Their designs, which featured their favorite parts of Cordova, emerged victorious out of a pool of 20 entries, according to Cordova Deputy Clerk Colette Gilmour.
The sticker design contest was open to students from third through sixth grade. After the submission deadline on Jan. 31, Gilmour said city employees voted for their top three designs. The six with the most votes then went to the City Council, who voted for the top two.
“It was a hard call because all the designs showed great imagination and local pride,” Gilmour said.
Ensweiler, 10, won with his design of a bull moose on a grassy meadow with snow-capped mountain peaks in the background.
“I was just super happy and excited,” he said about being one of the two winners.
When asked about his inspiration for his sticker, the fourth grader said he thinks moose are “really cool.”
“When I went out the road I saw five moose in one spot,” Ensweiler said. “They were all big ones.”
Underneath the moose, the “I voted” text sits in the foreground of a rainbow. For Ensweiler, that’s an ode to his home island of Oahu, Hawai’i, where he and his family moved from this past summer.
“Whenever I drew things in Hawai’i, I loved adding rainbows,” he said. “So, I kind of thought it’d be boring without a rainbow.”
Ensweiler pretty much draws anything, and said he teaches himself by watching other artists either in person or in demonstration videos.
The 10-year-old is interested in animals in both Alaska and Hawai’i. He even recounted snorkeling once on Oahu and seeing a giant sea turtle in the flesh – which he said is the coolest animal he’s ever seen.
“Me and my brother got to swim right above it,” he said.
As a disclaimer, though, Ensweiler added that: “It’s illegal to touch turtles in Hawai’i, so me and my brother couldn’t swim down to touch it.”
He said he wants to be a scuba diver when he grows up.
Skye Steritz, the fourth grade teacher at Mt. Eccles Elementary, praised Ensweiler’s sticker design – which she keeps on the back of her phone case.
She said she loves the fourth grade age group because kids are getting really creative and more independent at the same time.
“A bunch of kids in our class submitted designs and wanted to participate in the contest and they were all awesome,” Steritz said.
She added that she hopes the city will do another contest for the next local election.
On Landaluce’s sticker, Mt. Eyak stands tall under the Big Dipper constellation in a deep blue night sky.
The third grader said he was inspired by the views from his house for his design – views that include Mt. Eyak, the harbor, and Main Street.
“The whole front of the house is just basically a big window,” he said.
Landaluce detailed a bit of his strategy to win the contest – creating around 10 designs and choosing the best one. He said his mom showed him how to use the Procreate digital art app on his iPad, which is where he created his sticker.
The third grader, born and raised in Cordova, said he’s seen the Big Dipper in real life, and likes looking for constellations when the sky is clear. The star pattern on the Alaska flag is another reason he wanted to incorporate it into his design.
While he doesn’t know what he wants to be when he grows up yet, Landaluce is exploring a lot of his interests. Aside from art – he said he plays sports in the common area, loves going to the public library, and likes studying science. He’s even involved in Lego League, which is a STEM coding program.
“We build with Legos,” he said. “We build big stuff with robots and make them move.”
On Election Day last month, the nine-year-old said his grandma and mom saved a handful of his stickers. He also received support at school, when some of his teachers wore his design after casting their ballots.
One of those was his own teacher Kayti Ammerman, who said it was nice to see Landaluce’s art leave the classroom.
“I definitely grabbed that sticker and put it on when I voted, so I felt pretty proud,” she said. “It’s really great to see his art grow every time he just does a doodle or a quick draw.”
Gilmour, Cordova’s deputy clerk who was in charge of the sticker design contest, said the idea for the competition came out of a last year’s Alaska Clerk Conference.
“Our city clerk and I saw it as a fun and meaningful way to engage local youth – specifically students in third through sixth grade – in the democratic process,” she said. “The contest not only introduces kids to civic participation early on, but also encourages voter turnout with the chance to receive a unique, locally-designed sticker created by our own young residents.”
