Teen places in contest honoring Spokane Valley

Teenager Micaela Halpin turned in her multiple entries into the “This is Spokane Valley” photo and video contest with no expectations. After all, other people also turned in multiple entries.

The contest winners were announced at Valleyfest, and Halpin was surprised to find out that she had earned two second place wins in the contest designed to celebrate the city of Spokane Valley’s 10th anniversary. “I didn’t really expect much,” she said. “It was pretty shocking that I got two awards. It was pretty awesome.”

She entered the photo contest because she took a photography class last year and thought it would be a good learning experience. She visited Mirabeau Point Park to take a picture of the waterfall, snapped another of her younger sister Katherine and a cousin playing on the swings at Discovery Playground and stopped by Rusty’s Produce to take her prize-winning picture of her sister and cousin holding giant watermelons.

Then she recruited friends, family members and strangers to appear in her video highlighting what Spokane Valley has to offer. “Some of them were completely random people I saw in Spokane Valley doing stuff,” she said. She stopped by a local fire station, the Spokane River, the Thrifty Scotsman and Mary Lou’s Ice Cream for her filming.

Halpin, 17, is a Running Start student at Spokane Falls Community College.