Andrew Schultz received a National Silver Key, Lizzy Milne received a National Gold Key, and Jonathan D'Ambrosio received a National Silver Key and a National American Vision Award this year.

These are prestigious awards for their exceptional art and film through The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, the 89-year-old national program that recognizes outstanding creative teenagers and offers scholarship opportunities for graduating high school seniors.

The nonprofit Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, which administers the annual Awards, will honor national winners during a special ceremony at the world-famous Carnegie Hall in New York City on June 1, 2012. Select Award-winning art and writing will be exhibited at Parsons, The New School for Design in Manhattan, from June 1 through June 16, 2012. To kick off the week of celebrations, the Empire State Building will be lit gold in honor of the students’ achievements the night of May 31.

The first level of recognition for these students outstanding work took place through the College for Creative Studies, one of 116 affiliate organizations nationwide that, in partnership with the Alliance, conduct The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards in Southeastern Michigan.

The pieces receiving top honors locally were then submitted for national adjudication by a panel of jurors comprised of artists, authors, educators and other industry professionals. This year, more than 200,000 submissions were entered by students in grades 7-12. 1,600 received national recognition. The works of art and writing were evaluated on originality, technical skill and the emergence of a personal vision or voice. Notable past and current national jurors include Robert Frost, Chuck Palahniuk, Gary Panter, Frank McCourt, Judy Blume, Billy Collins, Peggy Noonan, William Saroyan, Kiki Smith, Lesley Stahl, David Sedaris, Mary Ellen Mark, Edwidge Danticat and Roz Chast.

“For 89 years the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards has provided the nation’s most creative teens with opportunities for recognition, exhibition, publication and scholarships,” said Virginia McEnerney, Executive Director of the Alliance. “Over the years these teens have consistently gone on to form the core of their generation’s creative leadership, not only by producing artwork with worldwide impact, but also by teaching, leading art museums, writing screenplays, producing films, and exemplifying the values of creative self-expression that the Awards encourage.”

The 2012 Award winners join the ranks of some of our country’s most revered artists and writers who received Scholastic Art & Writing Awards when they were high school, including New Yorker illustrator Edward Sorel, who will join them at Carnegie Hall this year. Plus Robert Redford, Andy Warhol, Truman Capote, John Lithgow, Joyce Carol Oates, John Baldessari, Philip Pearlstein, Zac Posen, Sylvia Plath, Richard Avedon, Robert Indiana and Abdi Farah (first-season winner of the Bravo reality show Work of Art: The Next Great Artist).

Founded in 1923, the Awards is the longest-running, most prestigious program of its kind, having fostered the creativity and talent of millions of students through recognition, exhibitions and publications. Over the past five years, students have submitted nearly 700,000 pieces of work, and over $25 million has been made available in scholarships and awards to top winning participants. As the program prepares for its 90th anniversary in 2013, the Alliance is calling all Award alumni to reconnect and join in the celebration.

The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards is generously supported by Scholastic Inc., the Maurice R. Robinson Fund, the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, AMD Foundation, Command Web Offset Co., Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP, The New York Times, Blick Art Materials, Ovation, New York Life, Amazon.com, Bloomberg L.P., the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Trust, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Worldcolor, and additional contributions from numerous other individual, foundation, and corporate funders.

Note: This announcement was received and posted by the Oakland Township-Lake Orion Patch.