The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards honored an extraordinary number of Charlotte Latin School students this year for their accomplishments in visual arts. In the 2025 Regional Mid-Carolina Scholastic Art Awards, work by Latin students in the seventh grade through 12th grade earned 22 Gold Keys, 18 Silver Keys, and 20 Honorable Mentions. 

“I’m so proud of our students and so proud of our faculty,” said Kaila Gottschling, Visual Arts Department Chair. She pointed out that Latin achieved these eye-popping results without being an art school or gearing students’ work toward any specific competition. “It’s the legacy of our program that builds from the bottom up,” she said. “We let our students explore, and by the time they reach the Upper School, they have an artistic sense of self and can express themselves.”

The Scholastic Awards, founded in 1923, have honored many generations of emerging artists: in the visual field alone, notables receiving laurels over the years have included Richard Avedon, Robert Indiana, Red Grooms, Gary Panter, and Audrey Niffenegger.

Particularly noteworthy this year was the prestigious American Visions Award: only one student among the Gold Key winners in each region can receive a national American Visions medal, and no more than five can be nominated from each region. The great honor of an American Visions nomination went to Lewawit Alemu ’26 for her mixed-media piece (collage and acrylic paint) titled Breaking News! — the medal will be determined by Scholastic’s national judges.

Another signal honor is the NCAEA Award, presented by the North Carolina Art Education Association to just one Gold Key winner. For the second year in a row, it went to a Latin student, Emma Korkowski ’29, who will be featured in a 2025 issue of ByDesign, a digital publication for North Carolina arts educators.

Scholastic’s Mid-Carolina region encompasses 27 different counties in both North Carolina and South Carolina and attracted thousands of submissions of student art. Despite that fierce competition, Latin students received 21% of the region’s Gold Keys, 19% of the Silver Keys, and 15% of the Honorable Mentions. All the Gold Key winners will automatically be entered in competition at the National Scholastic Awards, with results to come this spring.

In addition, the Mint Museum will host the Regional 2025 Gold and Silver Key Exhibition in its uptown location (at the Levine Center for the Arts) from March 1 through April 6. (Admission is free for artists and their families.) 

The work of three Latin students will be even more visible to the Charlotte public: Lewawit Alemu, Sophia Oh ’26, and Peyton Samii ’26 will all have their art featured on local billboards in March and April. (That honor is funded by Adams Outdoor, NAMTA, and the College of Arts + Architecture at UNC Charlotte.)

The Gold Key winners from Latin (some of whom were honored more than once, for different pieces of art) were Lewawit Alemu, Alex Bean ’25, Theo Fletcher ’28, Sadie Griffin ’27, Amelia Haggstrom ’28, Evelyn Haggstrom ’26, Samantha Holder ’29, Emma Korkowski, John Gray Norris ’29, Lily O’Brien ’30, Sophia Oh (three times), Grace Orsinger ’29, Leslie Osorio ’25, Jackie Rao ’26, Peyton Samii, Lucas Trogdon ’29, Kylie Wilson ’29, Kathryn Wu ’27, and Isabel Yang ’26 (twice).

Madison Nabors ’25 received a Silver Key for a portfolio of her work titled All of Us. The other Silver Key honorees from Latin comprised Jack Benonis ’28, Alex Budzichowski ’29, Connor Cheek ’29, Natalia Gomez ’25, Amelia Haggstrom, Evelyn Haggstrom, Jack Hall ’25, Yates Harris ’29, Ella Hennessy ’28, Ellie Hodge ’30, Cordelia Kim ’25, Sophia Oh, Leslie Osorio, Jackie Rao, Anlon Shah ’29, Kylie Wilson, and Isabel Yang.

Receiving Honorable Mentions were Jack Benonis ’28, Maya Borkowski ’29, Abbie Burns ’26, Emily Davis ’29, Charlotte Filpi ’30, Mac Fletcher ’26, Natalia Gomez, Catherine Harry ’28, Ella Hennessy, Rebecca Jackson ’30, Maddy Lay ’29, Sophia Oh, Turner Onstad ’29, Leslie Osorio, Vivian Randal ’28, Maya Rao ’29 (twice), Ella Sciacca ’30, William Valentine ’29, and Kylie Wilson.