Schools

Fourth-Grader Wins Inver Grove Heights Days Button Contest

Pine Bend Elementary School student Jillian Wilhelmson earned a pizza party, a $100 savings bond and a spot in the parade for designing the winning button.

Fourth-grader Jillian Wilhelmson has plenty to celebrate: The Pine Bend Elementary School student earned herself a pizza party, a $100 savings bond and more for designing the winning button for Inver Grove Heights Days.

Wilhelmson's design, a drawing of a muscular Spartan holding an American flag, will be featured on the admission buttons sold for the 2011 IGH Days, which runs from Sept. 8 through Sept. 11. The annual, city-wide celebration is run by a volunteer committee and financed through donations from residents and local business owners.

Each year, the IGH Days committee sends out button design forms to the fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms in Inver Grove Heights, said Becky Austing, the coordinator of IGH Days. Wilhelmson's design, Austing said, was chosen by the committee in part because of its originality.

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“It is so different than any of our [previous] button designs," Austing said. “We really, really, liked the fact that it encompassed some many different aspects of Inver Grove Heights Days, so many of the different events that go on.”

IGH Days includes a street dance, bingo, fireworks, a parade and a variety of other activities. For more information, visit the IGH Days website.

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