Antonio Devalque's Logo Contest ~ From the Third Coast to the Costa del Sol

Like in the states, November is election month in Spain. Earlier this month, the reigning socialist president, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (of the political party PSOE = Partido Socialista Obrero Español = Spanish Socialist Worker's Party) was replaced by the candidate of the Partido Popular (the People's Party), Mariano Rajoy. Rajoy will be only the country's SIXTH president as Spain was under the control of dictator Fransisco Franco until the mid 1970's.

In order to teach the kids at school a little something about voting and democracy, we had a little election of our own. Our mini-election was a contest to see who could design the best logo for the school. The logo would be placed atop the letterhead on all the school's official newsletters.

Everyone drew a picture and then two finalists from each class were chosen. The finalist's illustrations were numbered and placed in the hallway for everyone to observe. Then on Friday, a few kids from 2º de ESO (8th grade) set up the mesa electoral, or voter's table, in the entryway of the school and the kids went out class by class, presented their "Antonio Devalque Voter's Registration Cards," had their names checked off the list, and placed their ballots in the ballot box. Later, the last hour of the day, we had a short presentation and a counting of the ballots to see whose logo would be judged the winner. The winning logo is the one pictured at left, by a student from 2º de ESO.