Sharpies abound at Anamosa High School

ANAMOSA - If you need a permanent marker, you might want to ask Sarah Nutt and Jaden Oldham.

The longtime friends, who are 14 and freshmen at Anamosa High School, recently won $500 worth of Sharpie products in a national contest.

'Our advisory teacher was on the Channel One website to get the news and saw the contest,” Sarah said.

The teacher, Melissa Kane, printed out the details and Jaden and Sarah decided to enter.

'It said we had to use only Sharpie products, and draw something that made the school sound awesome,” Sarah said.

Jaden said they chose to draw on a light bulb, to 'show we had good ideas.”

The light bulb features Anamosa's logo, a stylized A, as well as the abbreviation 'AHS” for Anamosa High School and 'It's the Raider Way,” the school's motto. The girls wrote a short caption about what they drew and what the symbols meant.

'‘It's the Raider Way' is our school motto,” Jaden said. 'It's the official saying to show we are respectful, responsible students and staff.”

Sarah said a big box of Sharpie products was sent to her house.

'There was two of everything so it was easily split up,” Sarah said.

The box included markers, pens, highlighters and, Sarah said, 'a really big mug.”

'It was bigger than my head. I'm currently using it to hold Sharpies,” Sarah said.

Jaden said she has used her Sharpie pens a lot so far. Sarah said she uses hers to color code things.

Aside from the $500 worth of Sharpie products, the girls won $10,000 for Anamosa High School.

Anamosa High School Principal Jaqueline Lahey said the money will go toward updating the library with new carpet, shelving and paint. The school had considered using the money to redo the lockers, Lahey said via email, but 'unfortunately the cost to repaint and refurbish lockers is more than $10,000.”

Now that Jaden and Sarah have won a national contest, they said they're looking for other competitions.

'When we found out we won we just wanted to enter more,” Sarah said.