When the City of Demorest celebrates Independence Day this weekend, hundreds of residents and visitors will be wearing a T-shirt designed by one of the city’s own middle school students.
Ella Freeman, a Wilbanks Middle School student, was selected as the winner of the city’s 250th anniversary Fourth of July T-shirt design contest, beating out approximately 150 entries submitted by fellow students.
The winning design captures many of the familiar symbols of Independence Day, including an American eagle, fireworks, a waving patriotic banner and the words “250th Anniversary Demorest Georgia” encircling the artwork. Ella even signed the finished design that now appears on every commemorative shirt.
Asked what inspired her artwork, Ella kept the answer simple.
“I wanted to draw images of what I thought of when I think of 4th of July,” she said.
She said her favorite part of creating the design was experimenting with color.
“Color and thinking of all the colors I could use,” she said.
Although the finished shirt has become one of the visual centerpieces of Demorest’s sesquicentennial-plus celebration, Ella’s family didn’t even know she had entered the contest.
Her father, Scott Freeman, said the family learned about the victory while driving home from vacation after receiving an unexpected phone call from City Manager Mark Musselwhite.
“We were actually in the truck as a family coming back from vacation,” Freeman recalled. “I answered the call on speakerphone. I didn’t know who it was. It was an unrecognized number… He started telling the story about how Ella’s drawing was picked for the Demorest Fourth of July T-shirt. So needless to say, it was a pretty cool little phone call.”
Musselwhite said notifying the family became one of his favorite moments of planning this year’s celebration.
After learning from art teacher Raegan Turner that the family had not yet seen Ella’s design, Musselwhite called Scott Freeman, who happened to have the entire family in the vehicle.
“I told him who I was and what I was calling about,” Musselwhite said. “He says, ‘My wife and all our kids are in the car. We’re coming home from Gatlinburg. So can you say that a little louder for Ella?’ So it was a pretty cool moment for me, too.”
For Turner, the selection came as no surprise.
Each spring, all of her sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students participate in the project as part of a graphic design unit that teaches typography, composition and design principles. The assignment has become part of the curriculum, producing about 150 entries each year for city officials to consider.
What made Ella’s submission stand apart, Turner said, was the effort she put into it after leaving the classroom.
“Ella was the only child of the 150 that took her design home and worked on it home and brought it back,” Turner said. “She spent a lot of time doing that and was pretty proud of it. You could tell a difference between hers and most of the other ones just because she had put extra time into it.”
Rather than directing students exactly what to create, Turner said she encourages them to develop their own ideas through brainstorming and discussion while allowing the final artwork to remain entirely their own.
“I try to guide them and lead them and not tell them… because it really needed to be the student’s creation and not their teacher,” she said.
She believes projects like the T-shirt contest help students understand that art extends far beyond the classroom.
“I really love the opportunity for our students to be able to do this because it’s real world,” Turner said. “It’s an opportunity for students to experience where art meets real life… Communities and businesses incorporate art into their everyday lives, and it’s just really cool to have the opportunity every year that a Wilbanks Middle School student is going to have their design displayed for the Demorest T-shirt.”
Ella admitted she was both surprised and excited when she learned she had won.
Asked how it felt, she answered simply: “Very happy and surprised.”
She also shared what Demorest means to her.
“Demorest is home to me.”
And when asked what she hopes people think when they wear the shirt she designed, her answer reflected the spirit of the holiday.
“I hope that they feel grateful to have an amazing country and I hope they think that it looks good.”
Approximately 125 commemorative shirts were printed and will be available during Demorest’s Fourth of July celebration while supplies last. Musselwhite said the shirts are priced essentially at cost, ranging from about $10 to $14 depending on size.
For one young artist, what began as a classroom assignment has become something much bigger.
This Fourth of July, every shirt worn through downtown Demorest will showcase not only the city’s 250th anniversary celebration, but also the creativity, hard work and hometown pride of one of its own students.
