The votes have been counted and the winners of the Annual Bookmark Contest are Christian Perez, An Kim, and Maya Dotson, middle school winners, and Di Ho, Laura Luong, and Bonnie V, the high school winners. Honorable mentions for middle school include Gisell Garcia Lozano and Elisa Luna. The high school honorable mentions are Kaelynn Wang and Isabella Sanchez Vargas.

In a continuation of tradition, Preuss held the contest in the library for all grade levels. It began on the 16th of January and ran on until winners were announced on the 18th of February. The three winners of the middle and high school contest will have their bookmarks published and receive a book of their choice.

The Bookmark Contest has become an important tradition of the entire school, receiving large numbers of participants throughout the years. These are all as a result of the celebration of World Bookmark Day, which is officially recognized on February 25th.

“We’ve been doing it for as long as I’ve been here, which I’ve been here for 18 years, so this has been tradition,” said Preuss librarian Maria Gonzalez.

Although the holiday is important, the main focus of the librarians is to encourage student creativity and participation. Different themes for the bookmarks are decided by the librarians every year as a guideline for what student artwork will be based on and include.

“I believe it’s important for us to display student work, student artwork,” explained Gonzalez.

Disney and Pixar characters were decided as this year’s theme for the contest, which is a factor for the exceptionally high number of participants across middle and high school. Reportedly, the number of high schooler submissions for this year’s contest is higher than it’s ever been before.

“Not only can middle school participate, but high school, and this year we had the highest number of high schoolers participating,” Gonzalez revealed.

There will be three winners for both middle school and high school decided completely by student voting in the library. These winners will receive a book of their choice paid for by the Preuss librarians and also have their winning submissions displayed at the UC San Diego Geisel Library.

However, although it could be seen as a leading motivation for participation, many students did not know about the prize of the contest.

“I didn’t know we could get a free book if we won, I just submitted for fun and for extra credit in one of my classes,” expressed Tommy Vo (‘27).