Google Doodle Winner For Maryland Is Howard High Student

ELLICOTT CITY, MD — For this year's Doodle 4 Google contest, students across the country were asked to create a doodle based on the concept "What inspires me?" This week the California-based technology giant made public each state's winning submission.

The Maryland winner is a freshman at Howard High School, and she answered the question with a drawing that shows her passion for music, drawing, nature, art and growth.

Rebecca McArthur named her design "The Sounds of Music Create Beauty.”

Here is what she said about her doodle:

"The vines symbolize my inspiration as I'm drawing, which often stem from music as shown by the vines emerging from the gramophone. These vines wrap around and tangle the logo to show how I will often use plants and nature to change the meaning of a drawing by pulling them into my art. I chose the background to be a greenhouse to symbolize how my own growth in art also inspires me to continue drawing as I know I will only improve with time."

The guidelines for the "doodle" are simple, with students given free rein as long as they incorporate the letters G-o-o-g-l-e into their design.

Google surprised McArthur during a school assembly last week at Howard High School, according to the school system, which said her design was one of 53 selected from more than 180,000 entries.

Now McArthur is in contention to be a national finalist.

Vote for McArthur here. See all finalists in the Doodle 4 Google contest.

Public voting continues until 3 a.m. on May 19.

Five national finalists will be chosen by the public voting, and then a panel of judges will select the winner.

Besides a $30,000 college scholarship, the winner will get fame. The winning doodle will be featured on the Google homepage; the winner will receive Google hardware and swag; and the doodle artist will get to take a behind-the-scenes trip to Google headquarters in Mountain View, California.

The winner's school or nonprofit organization will also receive a $50,000 technology package.

The contest was open to students in grades kindergarten through 12.

This is not the first time a student from Howard County has made the grade. Google selected a Clarksville Middle School student's doodle as a finalist in 2016.

SEE ALSO: Clarksville Student is Maryland Google Doodle Winner

Patch editor Beth Dalbey contributed to this report.

Photo courtesy of the Howard County Public School System.