SIDNEY — Two high school seniors from the Sidney area each won $1,000 for college tuition in the 2019 Community Blood Center/Vectren Lead The Way Creative Scholarship competition.

Houston High School applauded Katelynn Garber at its May 10 awards ceremony, and Fairlawn High celebrated Lauren Dudgeon at its award assembly on May 17.

Garber and Dudgeon earned scholarships by designing novel marketing campaigns for a high school blood drive.

“Who doesn’t want to save someone’s life?” asked Garber in her scholarship essay. “It’s such an awesome feeling!”

Garber had the highest-scoring campaign in the competition. She designed a t-shirt with her “It Could be You Who Saves a Life” slogan on the front and “Someone Needs It… Daughter, Son, Mother, Father, Grandmother, Grandfather, Aunt, Uncle, Cousin, Sister, Brother, Friend, STRANGER” on the back.

“Sometimes we find ourselves helpless when we want to do something to help someone who isn’t doing well; there’s no better way than to donate blood,” Garber said. “With my slogan, ‘It Could Be You,’ it allows students and community members to understand why it is important to donate blood. ‘It Could be You’ who saves someone’s life.”

Garber will attend Cedarville University.

“I was trying to think of word play,” said Dudgeon at the Fairlawn High awards ceremony. “I thought of the blood types and thought about making a story from it.”

Dudgeon faced stiff Lead The Way competition among her own classmates. She was one of nine Fairlawn students who applied for the scholarship.

“Our teachers told us about it, so we had a lot,” she said.

She created a t-shirt design with a blood bag and tubing with the blood type letters “A, B, AB and O” leading to a blood drop on a scroll of paper. It includes her slogan, “Use your Type to Help Rewrite Someone’s Script.”

“My slogan is a metaphor showing how your blood type can help save a person’s life and be a part of their story,” Dudgeon wrote in her application essay. “The blood type they give is compared to typing on a page, and the script is compared to the story of a person’s life. We need people to continue donating their blood to keep the beautiful story going.”

Dudgeon will attend The Ohio State University – Lima Campus.

Dudgeon was one of two dozen Fairlawn seniors who received Red Cords at the award ceremony. They qualified for the Red Cord Honor program by registering to donate blood three or more times while in high school.