contributed photos
Above, Claire Miller of Sartell won four ribbons at the Minnesota State Fair for ninth-grade art. She won second place in pastel for “The Ballerina” (pictured on top row far left) and third place in charcoal for her portrait “The Stoic.” She won two honorable mention awards for oil/acrylic for “The Crane” and for watercolor for “The Green Fairy” (pictured in second row far right). In July, Claire won the second-place award in Little Falls at the Great River Arts Association Summertime in Minnesota Exhibition, a state-wide juried competition for artists. Her winning work, “The Bee,” was done in watercolor pastel.
Von Pinnon has been publishing the St. Joseph Newsleader since 1989, the Sartell-St. Stephen Newsleader since 1995 and the Sauk Rapids-Rice Newsleader since 2015. She graduated from Minnesota State University-Moorhead with degrees in mass communications (with an emphasis on print journalism) and biology. She lives in southeast St. Cloud with her husband and two children.