The City of Concord announced the winners of the annual Stormwater Art Contest. Eight students were honored for their winning artwork during a reception held on Thursday evening at ClearWater Arts Center & Studios. The annual contest brings awareness to stormwater pollution to help keep Concord’s local waterways clean.
At the awards ceremony, the City’s beloved water drop mascot, Drippy, helped announce the first, second, and third place winners from the elementary, middle, and high school categories. All the students who participated in the competition were given prize bags with art supplies and the winners also received a gift card.
The 2025 Stormwater Art Contest winners are:
- High School –
- First place: Vikram Thakral, Cox Mill High School, 10th grade
- Second place: Asritha Jagarlamundi, Cabarrus Early College of Technology, 9th grade
- Middle school –
- First place: Diyah Kamesh, Harris Road Middle School, 7th grade
- Second place: Sakana Venkatesh, J.N. Fries Middle School, 7th grade
- Third place: Aashna Tandon, Harris Road Middle School, 6th grade
- Elementary School –
- First place: Andrian Paththamperum, Carl A. Furr Elementary School, 1st grade
- Second place: Luke Oh, Weddington Hills Elementaryl, 4th grade
- Third place: Chaarvi Borra, W.R. Odell Elementary School, 4th grade
The City received 25 submissions from students at 15 different schools, including artwork from two homeschool students. The artwork was reviewed and scored by a panel of judges, with points awarded based on creativity, how clearly the student conveyed a message on stormwater pollution, artistic merit, and overall impression.
The overall winner with the highest total score across all three categories was Vikram Thakral from Cox Mill High School. Judges praised his artwork for its incredible detail. As the overall winner, his artwork may be applied to a storm drain in the city.
“The Stormwater Art Contest gave me the opportunity to combine my creativity with an important message on environmental awareness,” said overall winner, Vikram Thakral. “We need to take collective action to dispose of waste properly and keep our stormwater clean.”
Students in grades K-12 were invited to participate in the art contest, and they were given educational materials to learn about stormwater pollution. Combining art and science to help students learn about stormwater and embrace simple actions at home to help prevent pollution is the goal of the program.
A 5th grade student had this to say after participating in the contest, “keeping clean water is one of the most important things for our lives. How can we keep water clean? I think it would be great if everyone could easily participate [in] this every day. If we all clean up the areas around us by picking up trash, the stream will stay clean, and the water will become cleaner.”
All the artwork from the 2025 Stormwater Art Contest is currently on display at ClearWater Arts Center & Studios for the public to view during open gallery hours. The artwork can also be viewed online at concordnc.gov/stormwaterartcontest.
