Bulloch County student Melanie Burgos is a district winner of the 2025 Georgia Farm Bureau (GFB) Middle School Bookmark Contest. She received $100 for being the top winner from GFB’s 7th District, which includes 17 counties in upper Southeast Georgia.
Burgos is the daughter of Anthony Burgos. Her artwork may be viewed at https://gfb.ag/25bookmarkwinners along with the bookmarks of the other district winners.
“Georgia Farm Bureau’s Middle School Bookmark Contest encourages students to explore agriculture and then create a piece of art inspired by what they learned,” said GFB President Tom McCall. “Students who might not otherwise think about agriculture learn about the variety of crops and livestock Georgia farmers raise as they create their drawings.”
The contest, sponsored by Georgia Farm Bureau, was open to any Georgia middle school student in grades 6-8. Bulloch County Farm Bureau coordinated the contest locally. The middle school contestants were given a blank bookmark and asked to create a design illustrating Georgia agriculture.
When she entered the contest earlier this year, Burgos was an eighth-grade student at Langston Chapel Middle School. Mrs. Burns is the teacher who encouraged Burgos to enter the contest.
The 81 county Farm Bureaus across the state that held local contests submitted their top winners to GFB from which 10 district winners were chosen based on artistic merit and how well the artwork represented Georgia agriculture.
A panel of judges selected the GFB district bookmark winners from all county entries submitted for each district. Once the district winners were selected, all GFB headquarters office employees were invited to vote for their favorite bookmark without knowing the names of the artists nor counties that submitted the sketches and bookmarks.
