VERGENNES — A talented student in Addison County could soon have his art on the Google homepage for hundreds of millions to see.
Google on Friday announced the 53 state and territory winners in its eighth annual Doodle 4 Google competition, a contest open to K-12 students across the United States to redesign the Google logo inspired by the theme “What makes me…me”
Louis Provencher, a fifth-grader from Champlain Valley Christian School in Vergennes, is one of the 53 winners with his doodle, “Nature Walk at D.A.R. Park.” His doodle depicts scenes from walks in the D.A.R. Park in Addison using clever photos of natural elements to spell out the word “Google.”
Provencher’s doodle was selected from around 100,000 received this year. This was the first year that the use of non-traditional media was strongly encouraged, and about a quarter of submissions used materials like clay, paper maché, leaves and picnic tables. 
Google is asking people to vote for their favorite doodle from the 53 state winners. Voting will be open from today, Feb. 5, to Feb. 22 on this site: http://www.google.com/doodle4google/vote.html. The winner of the public vote will determine the five national finalists (one in each grade group).
Google will announce these five national finalists and one of them as the national winner on March 21 — and the winner’s doodle will go live on Google.com that day.
The winning student and five national finalists will travel to Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., to meet and workshop with Google’s team of professional doodlers and see what it takes to launch a Doodle on the Google homepage. This year, the National Finalist can also nominate a teacher who has inspired them to come along on the trip.  The National Winner will take home a $30,000 college scholarship and his or her school will receive a $50,000 Google for Education grant toward the establishment and improvement of a computer lab or technology program. 
Look for a full story in next Thursday’s Addison Independent.