Students Add Wildfire Mural to Gym

This article, by Arwen Hertzler ’21, was original published in the January 2021 issue of Windsock.

At the request of EMS’ Athletics Department, Ms. Gascho, art teacher, and a group of four talented student artists have agreed to create a mural in the EMS gym to support the school’s athletes.

The project began when, according to Anna Stempel ’21, ” … Ms. Gascho, Anneke [McDonald], Claire [Parsley], and I brainstormed ideas for the mural and what direction we wanted to go in. We wanted the elements of our logo, the name of the student section, Wildfire, and something to connect with all the different sports at our school.” Since Stempel was in the Digital Drawing class at the time, she created a design that combined all of these elements on a computer. Her design was then projected onto the gym wall for tracing with pencil.

With such a big project, Stempel came to the conclusion that inviting the seniors in the National Honors Society to assist with the painting would be a win-win for all. NHS members could get some of their required community service hours out of the way, and the mural would be done in a much shorter amount of time. Thus, Anna Tieszen, Karla Hostetter, Halie Mast, and Arwen Hertzler have all gotten involved in the project as well, meeting every Wednesday they’re available (with masks and social distancing, of course).

Although the mural has yet to be finished and only includes the colors blue, white and black, it is truly wonderful to look at. Hopefully, after its completion, it will serve as ample motivation for the athletes of EMS.