Texas has some talented young artists.
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has announced the 2026 winners of the Texas division of the Wildlife Forever’s Fish Art Contest. The contest is housed and administered by TPWD’s Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center in Athens.
Judges chose 14 out of 714 total entries to be featured in the 2027 Texas Fish Art Calendar and displayed in an exhibit at TFFC.
Students are placed into grade categories for judging, where their skills are more closely matched. The judges grade the art based on accuracy of the chosen species, accuracy of the habitat, and the artist’s creativity to choose the winners for each grade category.
In the K-3 category, the winners were: First place, Jeremiah Lee of Dallas; second place, Franco Du of Flower Mound; third place, Nora Cheng of Austin.
Honorable mentions in grades K-3 were awarded to: Cathie Zhang of Austin; Layla Ruppert of Fort Worth; Ivan Moc of Dallas; Haasya Doddapaneni of Dallas; Alisa Davis of Flower Mound; and Ariana Savarina of Fort Worth.
In the grades 4-6 category, the winners were: First place, Candice Chen of Bee Cave; second place, Eva Huang of Austin; third place, Yueran Lang of Austin.
Honorable mentions in grades 4-6 were awarded to: Zoe Chen of Austin; Elsie Zhang of Austin; Raymond Alvarez of Bee Cave; Caeden Yacktman of Bee Cave; Maahi Khivansara of Lewisville; and Pranthi Lingamneni of Irving.
In the grades 7-9 category, the winners were: First place, Alice Zhang of Manvel; second place, Annabelle Yuan of Frisco; third place, Ivan Zaklyazminskiy of Frisco.
Honorable mentions in grades 7-9 were awarded to: Chloe Chow of Southlake; Hsin-Pei Chen of Plano; Lydia Ireland of San Antonio; and Yolanda Xiong of Flower Mound.
In the grades 10-12 category, the winners were: First place, Dalia Morales of Houston; second place, Eliza Chung of Bee Cave; third place, Adrienne Wang of Houston.
Honorable mentions for grades 10-12 were awarded to: Alexandra Mossburg of New Braunfels; Rex Hawes of Bee Cave; Dorothy Valentine of Whitesboro; and Luisa Tijerina of McAllen.
