Eleven-year-old Mitchell Warner can do Super Bowl stars Joe Montana and Troy Aikman one better. He might be the only person in the world who can say, "I'm going to Disney World and a Brazilian rain forest."
Mitchell was the most valuable artist, so to speak, in two poster contests this year, earning him trips to both places. One poster was about the positive effects of not using tobacco; the other about saving the environment.Both projects taught him some valuable lessons.
Mitchell went to a local convenience store earlier this year to look at a carton of cigarettes so he could draw one on the anti-smoking poster.
The store clerk told Mitchell he started smoking at age 12 under pressure from peers. He said he tried to quit over the years but was never able to stop. His last words to Mitchell as he left the store were, "Never start."
"It was quite a good experience," said Susan Warner, Mitchell's mother.
The impression left on Mitchell carried over into the poster he drew that won first place in the National Tar Wars Poster Contest last month in Denver. At least 50,000 fifth-grade students from 18 states entered the competition. Warner's poster shows athletes stomping out a carton of cigarettes under the slogan, "Go for a natural high."
Mitchell, who will be a sixth-grader at Wasatch Elementary School, said he's learned this about tobacco use: "It messes up your life. It kills you."
Susan Warner said fifth grade is the right time to inform children about the dangers of tobacco. "If you wait until sixth grade, they've already been approached," she said.
The winning poster earned the Warner family a trip to Disney World. But it won't be the most exotic trip the Warners will take this year.
Mitchell's fifth-grade teacher, Bonnie Busco, handed him some papers one day with a yellow note stuck to the top page. It read: "Mitchell, do you want to go to a rain forest?"
The papers were entry forms for a poster contest held by the International Children's Exchange to Save the Environment. Mitchell entered and was among eight winners worldwide.
He and his mother or father, Terry, will spend Oct. 11-19 in a rain forest on the Amazon River near Manaus, Brazil. The trip is sponsored by Sebastion International, Inc., a hair-salon chain.
Mitchell drew children standing on top of the Earth under the banner, "Working together we can make the world cleaner and greener." The poster also shows people around the world planting trees, recycling and saving a rain forest. He competed against thousands of children worldwide.
A recent television program about a journey down the Amazon showed Mitchell what he might be seeing. He said he's looking forward to living with native tribes and watching crocodiles at night.