Prince William NAACP Arts Competition

Prince William County NAACP held its 2020 inaugural local ACT-SO competition for high school students with participants from Prince William, Fairfax, Culpeper and Alexandria, Virginia. ACT-SO acronym for Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological & Scientific Olympics, started in 1978 by journalist Vernon Jarrett. It is a year-long academic achievement and enrichment program culminating in 34 competitions covering STEM, Business, Humanities, Visual, Performing and Culinary Arts, with more than half the competition being in the Arts.

The 2022 event was held at Northern Virginia Community College - Woodbridge Campus. In the area of the Arts, students submitted projects in original Poetry, Dramatics, Original Essay, Painting, and Photography. In addition, students entered several music competitions including Music Instrumental Classical, Music Vocal Classical and Music Vocal Contemporary.

The PWC NAACP is currently recruiting high school students, judges and sponsors for the 2023 local ACT-SO com- petition on Saturday, April 29, 2023. Although the program targets African American students and Prince William County students, the competition is open to all students and other Northern Virginia localities. The application deadline was recently extended to February 15, 2023.

Students are judged based on criteria developed by industry professionals in three winning categories: Gold Medal, Silver Medal and Bronze Medal. In addition to cash prizes, all winners receive a personalized portfolio and several educational gifts. Gold Medal winners were eligible to compete in the National ACT-SO Competition with all expenses paid by the PWC NAACP.

Student participants and judges are needed for the following competition categories.

Humanities, Visual Arts, and Performing Arts

For an application and more information contact Michael Artson at mikeartson@ yahoo.com or Carolyn Custard at custarcm@pwcs.edu.

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