Oak Forest High School Freshman Danielle Murawski won Second Place in the 8th Annual Metra Safety Poster and Essay Contest, designed to promote and reinforce railroad safety messages and keep our region’s children safe around trains. Thousands of students from across the region participated in this year’s contest, creating artwork or writing essays around the theme “Get Smart, Look Listen Live.” This is the third year that Danielle has won this contest, winning First Place in eighth grade, and Second Place in seventh grade.
Danielle’s poster features a Scrabble board with the tiles “Look, Listen, and Live” spelled out on the board. The title of her poster is “Train Safety is Not a Game.” As a Second Place winner, Danielle won a cash prize of $250.
Danielle got into the contest originally at the prompting of her father, George Murawski, who commutes to Chicago daily and saw the original announcement of the contest on his monthly ticket and in the Metra Newsletter. He told Danielle about the contest and she entered.
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Each year, Metra’s Safety Contest invites students in grades K-12 throughout its six-county service area to submit poster designs and essays highlighting the importance of railroad safety. Tasked with selecting the winners were a panel of 23 judges, including government officials, representatives from safety and education advocacy groups, business and community leaders, media and railroad professionals.
“Safety has always been Metra’s highest priority, and for the past eight years this contest has been an innovative way for Metra to bring rail safety discussions into classrooms across our region,” said Metra Executive Director/CEO Don Orseno. “The posters and essays created by these talented students help us educate future as well as current riders about how to stay safe around our trains and tracks.”
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Metra’s Safety Contest, which is in its eighth year, would not be possible without the support of its sponsors, whose generous contributions have helped Metra defray the costs of the contest prizes as well as the production of the safety posters. This year’s contest sponsor is the Hubbard Radio Group, owners of Chicago radio stations 97.1 FM The Drive, 100.3 Chicago’s Rewind and 101.9 The Mix.
Information about the campaign, along with all of the Safety Contest winners, is available at www.metrarail.com and www.facebook.com/MetraContest.
