Warsaw elementary school fifth- and sixth-graders and Warsaw Community High School art students display the banners they designed for this summer’s season at the Wagon Wheel Center for the Arts, Warsaw. (Photo provided)

Third- and fourth-graders designed posters for the winter, 2015, production of “Cinderella.”

WARSAW — Drivers in Warsaw’s downtown area this summer will notice colorful banners depicting two well-known musicals.

Every fall and spring, students from Warsaw Community Schools compete to have their artwork displayed throughout the downtown area for a full season, announcing upcoming productions at the nonprofit Wagon Wheel Center for the Arts. Participation is open to all students at the elementary level and to middle- and high-school art students.

The contest takes place through a partnership between WCS, the Wagon Wheel and the Warsaw Rotary Club. The idea, organizers Will Dawson and Andrea Miller said, is to promote both the visual and performing arts and to give students a chance to test their own creative abilities.

“We wanted to get more people in our community involved in arts and, naturally, students are the ones that we were looking to,” Dawson said. “We wanted to make arts eduction available to students.”

Dawson is the executive director at the Wagon Wheel and Miller is an art teacher at Washington Elementary School. The contest is open to all interested students throughout WCS. It rotates between grade levels, with three rotations in all. For example, fall’s contest was open to third- and fourth-graders, with spring, 2017, featuring work by first- and second-graders.

Students are assigned a production to illustrate. There are only two rules: They must include the name of the production and they must include the dates for the show. This year’s productions were, “Beauty and the Beast” for the elementary level and “Grease” for the high schoolers.

Following the contest deadline, art teachers at each school choose several finalists. These are sent to Rotary members, who choose the top three from each school. This year, there were between 4,000 and 5,000 entries.

After judging, an awards ceremony takes place at the Wagon Wheel, where winners are revealed. The top three from each school receive tickets to different shows at the Wagon Wheel and all participants are treated to desserts from Zoyo. First-place winners’ work goes onto the banners.

The contest began in 2012 when local students were invited to design pieces announcing the Wagon Wheel’s production of “Peter Pan.” After that, the project took off.

Dawson and Miller feel the contest helps expose students to the arts, particularly those who, otherwise, may not have had the chance to experience them. It has also helped many students discover their own, artistic abilities.

“You get a lot of people who have never been in to the Wagon Wheel before and, really, a lot of the parents don’t know their kids have artistic ability until they are named a finalist,” Dawson said.