Leawood 8th-grader is Kansas winner in Google’s annual Doodle competition

An eighth-grader at Leawood Middle School, Julia Huff, is the Kansas winner of Google’s eighth annual Doodle 4 Google art competition.

This year’s contest involves redesigning the Google logo with the theme “What makes me … me.” Julia’s Doodle, “Art and Animals,” shows her painting with her cat nearby, which she says she loves to do.

Her Doodle is online, along with those of 52 other state and territorial winners announced Friday, at http://www.google.com/doodle4google/vote.html. Those winners, chosen from among 100,000 entries from across the U.S., now compete in online voting at that site.

Five finalists will be chosen, one in each age bracket, and get to go to Google headquarters. The top overall vote getter will win a $30,000 scholarship, and the winner’s school will get a $50,000 educational grant from Google.

That doodle also will be displayed on Google’s home page March 21, when the winner is announced.

In Missouri, the winner is Anh Le, a senior from Maryville High School in northwest Missouri. His doodle, “My Creative Rift,” depicts “his love for linking reality with the world of imagination through his artwork,” a release from Google said.

Though only one of them could be the overall champion, Huff and Le both could be finalists. She is among 12 state winners in the bracket for grades 8 and 9, and he is among 11 finalists in the bracket for grades 10 through 12.

This story was originally published February 5, 2016 at 10:48 AM with the headline "Leawood 8th-grader is Kansas winner in Google’s annual Doodle competition."