Sophia Jiang, a Clarendon Hills Middle School eighth grader, won the 2025 Student Poster Contest run annually by Quinlan & Fabish Music Company.

Students across the Midwest submitted artwork in many styles focused on the topic, “Join The Band.” For the 2025 contest, Quinlan & Fabish, which operates nine stores in three Midwestern states including one in Burr Ridge, received 83 posters, considerably more than the 22 entries a year ago.

Sophia’s contest win marks the second time in three years a CHMS student has won the prize. In 2023, Eliana Cuttica was the winner.

“To have a student from your school win this award is a huge honor, but having two winners within two years of each other is a rarity,” said Eric Morong, CHMS band director. “It speaks volumes to the exceptional art teachers we have in Clarendon Hills.”

Morong said Sophia’s artwork will be used on posters and shared with hundreds of schools across Illinois, Indiana and Michigan.

“Her visual art skills are next level for a student her age,” Morong said.

Mike Bale, who taught Sophia in both art and digital media classes last year, said he was “not surprised to hear about her success.”

“Sophia has always been a high flyer,” he said.

Sophia is a flutist in the CHMS band program and picked up bass guitar during the last school year and joined the school’s Jazz Band.

She said when she learned about the contest, she knew she needed a good idea, so she thought about it for a few weeks and then started sketching it.

“My idea came from my own experience in band,” Sophia said. “I think the best part of band is having fun with my classmates and friends, and I thought that future band students would join band if they knew that the class was like this.

“Drawing it took about a day, and then painting it took another day. I think my biggest motivation to enter this contest was the prize. Also, I just thought, ‘why not,’ because it’s summer and I have a lot of free time.”

The prize was a pair of Yamaha TW-E5BBL earbuds.

Sophia said she was surprised when she learned that she had won the poster contest.

“I was surprised, but super happy because I love winning in any circumstance,” she said.”I was also really grateful to everyone who had voted for me.”

Sophia said this wasn’t her first time entering an art contest.

Those experiences go back to her years in kindergarten and first grade and also included later entries in the Clarendon Hills Public Library’s bookmark contest and the village’s Centennial Art Contest. Her mother entered a few of Sophia’s oil paintings in the 2025 Youth Art Contest organized by The International Art Museum of America, where her entries advanced to the second round.

While she continues to enjoy art and music, Sophia’s career hopes have nothing to do with either.

“If all my dreams come true for the future, I would like to be a police officer, but I do see art in my future because I think I will always draw in my free time,” she said. “As for music, I might continue it in high school, but probably not any more than that.”

Chuck Fieldman is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/08/28/clarendon-hills-poster-winner/