OSU holds Creativity Festival and announces challenge winners

Friday, March 26, 2010

Winners in the Creative Challenge were announced during the OSU’s 2nd annual Creativity Festival held March 25. The challenge asked participants for proposals answering the question: How can you recreate your community? From left to right are: Dr. Stephen McKeever, Vice President of Research; Melanie Page, OSU Creativity Initiative director; Don Mitchell, second place winner and Sara Siems, third place winner.

Oklahoma State University put the spotlight on creativity across its campus with its second annual Creativity Festival Thursday. The event included a creativity competition that challenged participants to answer the question: How can you recreate your community?

“We were extremely pleased with the response we received to the challenge,” said OSU Creativity Initiative director Melanie Page. “There were more than 100 proposals submitted by individuals or groups from across OSU and the Stillwater area.”

First, second and third place winners were announced following presentations by the five finalists before an audience in the Student Union Theater.

First place was awarded to the Boomer Amphitheater Coalition which wants to construct an amphitheater at Boomer Lake in Stillwater. The group received a $1,500 cash prize.

Don Mitchell received $1,000 for winning second place. His proposal, BRIDGE Communications, focuses on facilitating communication between the elderly and their families.

And the third place prize and $500 was awarded to Adam Cobb and Sara Siems with oksprout.org who proposed the development of a community garden in Stillwater.

Also taking home awards and cash prizes in the kids challenge were Ethan Gay (K-3rd grade category) and Maddie Gay (4th – 7th grade category) both from Skyline Elementary in Stillwater.

The announcement of creative challenge winners capped off the day-long festival that included a creativity showcase that highlighted creativity across campus; creative cuisine which raised money for Haiti relief and a presentation by festival keynote speaker Ravi Naidoo who is a creativity expert from South Africa.

In addition to the activities during the day a free concert was presented Thursday night featuring the Sherree Chamberlain Band. Chamberlain is a singer-songwriter and OSU graduate.

“The goal of the festival is to highlight what we are already doing across campus that’s creative,” Page said. “So we recognize as a campus that all of us have the ability to be creative and be leaders in our respective fields.”