Eva. Average.

Eva Loddle is very average. No fancy clothes, hair highlights, or eye shadow. She’s pretty quiet in class, doesn’t really socialize with the other students a lot. She’s not really big or small, hot or cold.

Yesterday was the awards ceremony for the Mountain Ridge Jr. High Art Show. Judges from outside the school picked the winners. Eva Loddle shyly accepted third place in the category of painting. Oh, and second place in the category of painting. And first. Then she was awarded “Best of Show”. Finally to round things out, this remarkably unremarkable student was awarded the Purchase Award which means one of her paintings will hang in the Mountain Ridge student center for the rest of eternity. The gathered spectators applauded. Eva smiled. After all, the total winnings are worth around $350.

Eva first stood out to me when I caught her reading a book about Andy Warhol. For fun. Weird. The next time I raised my eyebrows was when I discovered that while at Mt. Ridge she had taken every art class known to human-kind. I didn’t even know that was possible with the limited electives jr. high students are allowed. Then again in my sculpture class she put forth more effort than about four other students put together. When I discovered that the judges had selected her three pieces as the three winners of the painting category and Best of Show I couldn’t have been happier. Good-on-ya Eva. You are far above average.