A portrayal of a green-winged teal pair won first place in the Federal
Junior Duck Stamp Design Contest held April 26, 2003, in Ocean City,
Maryland. The contest is sponsored by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The acrylic painting by 18-year-old Nathan Bauman of Jonestown,
Pennsylvania, was judged the top painting among the winners from 50 states plus the District of Columbia and American Samoa. Bauman's painting will become 2003-2004 Federal Junior Duck Stamp, which the Fish and Wildlife Service's Federal Duck Stamp Office makes available for $5 to stamp
collectors and conservationists. Proceeds from Junior Duck Stamp sales are used to support participants in the program and a scholarship for contest winners.
Bauman's art teacher is Linda Hilgert at Lebanon County Career and Technology Center.
"The Federal Junior Duck Stamp program helps foster a conservation ethic in America's youth," said Service Director Steve Williams. "By combining the arts and wildlife conservation into one curriculum, students learn about wildlife management principles as well as the aesthetic qualities of wildlife and nature."
Winning the Junior Duck Stamp design is the culmination of a year long
Junior Duck Stamp conservation curriculum used by educators in their
classrooms. Each state hosts competitions where Junior Duck Stamp design entries are judged by a group of people active in the local wildlife art or conservation community.
State "Best of Show" winning designs are sent to Washington, D.C., where
three national winners are chosen by a panel of five judges. The Junior
Duck Stamp Contest winner receives a free trip to Washington, D.C., along
with the art teacher, a parent and the state coordinator the following
October to be honored at the Federal Duck Stamp Contest. The first-place
winner also receives a $4,000 scholarship award.
Judges for this year's national Junior Duck Stamp Design Contest were: Lynn Greenwalt, former director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; Ron Louque, winner of the 2002 Federal Duck Stamp Contest; Robert Williams of Stamp Services at the U.S. Postal Service; June Lyon a nationally recognized wildlife carver and former Federal Duck Stamp Contest judge; and Ken Basile, Executive Director of the Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art at Salisbury University.
The green-winged teal is the smallest of ducks, but one of the most adept
flyers in the waterfowl world. Breeding across the boreal forest regions of Alaska and Canada and southward to central California and the southern prairies, the green-winged teal is one of the earliest to migrate. It flys in very large flocks often at night. Green-winged teal winter along both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, the central valley of California, the playa regions of the southern prairies, and are densest along the gulf coast of Louisiana and Texas.
For more information or winning images, please see or call 202/208-5636.