Page 28 - Senior Link Magazine Spring 2025 - Online Magazine

MUSIC & ART HONORING SENIORS

Lubbock Christian College in the University Interscholastic League. contestants also learn each
1970s, I got as close as possible These early UIL years featured work’s history and discuss their
to the easel holding Rembrandt’s mainstream sports events, and in interpretations. Just as Christie
The Night Watch in Amsterdam. 1927, the organization held its first and I did in 1966-67, in Part A of
I returned to that city with my One-Act Play Contest. today’s competition, the students
husband in 2015 and stood face-to- identify 15 of the 40 pictures by
face with Van Gogh’s Self- Portrait In the 1930 Bulletin, the UIL Chief artist and title.
as a Painter. directed that the newly sanctioned
[and standardized] Picture Now Part B requires competitors
The extensive works of Monet Memory competition would be the to answer 30 questions about the
housed at the Musée d’Orsay in study of “classical pictures and history and characteristics of the
Paris enthralled me much more world-famous artists” for fifth 40 pieces. UIL also expanded the
than my daughter when we visited graders. That same year, the UIL competition to two divisions:
in 1999. Thankfully, she was more identified the first list of pictures grades 4-6, grades 7-8.
impressed with da Vinci’s works and advised schools on how to
when we visited the Mona Lisa at the order prints from publishers. I just downloaded UIL’s current A+
Louvre with my mom in 2010. Art Contest’s Official List. I have so
Another of the UIL Chief’s much more to learn and, well, see
I saw Starry Night in MOMA and predictions in 1930, again proved firsthand. On the list I recognize
what I think were other Picture at least partially prescient for some artists’ names, Vermeer and
Memory works in London’s National me: “The competitive stimulus is Matisse for two. But oh, so many
Gallery, Madrid’s Prada, and our given, as in all League contests, names are new to me. I may just
country’s own National Gallery of as a sort of pedagogical trick. order the prints and the video tour
Art. Surely, I have commingled the Winning or losing is of small of the paintings. Yes, even today, as
40 works we studied in 1966 and importance. The great thing is Chief Bedichek predicted in 1930,
1967 with works I later learned to to open the mind of the children UIL’s Picture Memory enriches my
love. But without doubt, that UIL to new fields of beauty.” Picture life.
competition coupled with Mrs. Memory no doubt opened my
Donaldson’s expectations were the fourth-grade mind, but tricked or Thank you, Picture Memory. You
springboard into a world of art I not, this later lawyer most likely deserve an A+.
would not have otherwise sought valued the wins more in
with such zeal. 1966-1967.

This farm girl is a living example From 1930 forward,
of what UIL Chief Roy Bedichek Picture Memory
expressed in the September 22, 1930 has introduced an
The University of Texas Bulletin No. immeasurable number
3036, “Pictures Children Should of Texas elementary
Know”: “Once some sort of real school students like
appreciation for beautiful pictures me to new fields of
comes to a child, he will never lose beauty. The competition
it. He may forget the names of the evolved in the 1950s to
pictures and the names of the artists, include fourth and fifth
but a love for beautiful pictures grade students while
becomes a part of him, a possession consistently presenting
which will permanently enrich his 40 new art works within
life.” its two-year cycle. The
competition continues
The road to institution of the UIL today under the UIL
Picture Memory competition began Academic A+ Art
in 1910, when the Texas State Contest designation and
Teachers Association formed the introduces students to art
Debating League of Texas. The works from the National
Interscholastic Athletic Association Gallery of Art and
formed in 1911 and held the first selected Texas museums.
state track meet in 1912. In 1913,
the two groups merged to form the Academic A+ Art

28 Lubbock Senior Link