Texas Kids Reel in Wins at 2025 Fish Art Contest

The results are in! Texas Parks and Wildlife Department along with the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center (TFFC) are celebrating the amazing talents of young Texas artists from all over the state in the 2025 Wildlife Forever Fish Art Contest.

This annual contest received 485 entries this year and the 12 winners will be featured in the upcoming 2026 Texas Fish Art Calendar. Plus the winning art pieces will be on display at the TFFC in Athens, which reopens to the public July , 2025.

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Age Group Winners:

Grades K-3:

1st – Jessica Ding (Austin)
2nd – Candice Chen (Austin)
3rd – Jeremiah Lee (Coppell)

Grades 4–6:

1st – Kenneth Ge (Lubbock)
2nd – Regina Du (Flower Mound)
3rd – Alice Xie (Austin)

Grades 7–9:

1st – Rachel Shen (Austin)
2nd – Ziheng Wang (Austin)
3rd – Paxton Grigsby (McKinney)

Grades 10–12:

1st – Joshua Washington (Pasadena)
2nd – Dalia Morales (Houston)
3rd – Brett Baker (Hallettsville)

Special Awards:

Special Species Award – Features the Guadalupe bass, Texas’ official state fish!
Inspired by a 1989 class effort to get the Guadalupe bass recognized!

Winner: Alyssa Trevino (Pharr)

NEW! Mighty Minnow Award – Honoring amazing kindergartners!

Winner: Rishan Patri (Beaumont)

Scholarships, Sponsored by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation:

Grades 10–12: $1,000 / $750 / $500
Grades 4–9: $200 / $150 / $100
Grades K–3: $100 / $75 / $50

Honorable Mentions:

Honorable mentions in grades K-3 were awarded to: Mira Sarakinti of Fort Worth; Tim Du of Flower Mound; Eva Huang of Austin; Shambhavi Deva Rao of McKinney; Lauren Chun of Carrollton; Elsie Zhang of Austin; Arya Ocasio of Austin; Ronit Patri of Beaumont; and Scarlette Tian of Austin.

Honorable mentions in grades 4-6 were awarded to: Samuel Wang of Spring; Shachi Basak of Irving; Ashvika Biswas of Allen; Jennifer Ding of Austin; Srinidhi Reddy Maddireddy of Irving; Meileen Bulger of Cedar Park; Alan Radford of Bee Cave; Zoe Zeng of Conroe; and Aanvi Chitneni of Cedar Park.

Honorable mentions in grades 7-9 were awarded to: Maria Sabitova of Fulshear; Kristina Villanueva of Dallas; Sanjana Thouda of Irving; Emma Lei of Cedar Park; Camila Vasquez of McAllen; Jenny Lin of Sugar Land; Maryam Hussein of Katy; and Alyssa Trevino of Pharr.

Honorable mentions for grades 10-12 were awarded to: Chloe Whitehead of Franklin; Kai-lin Hsu of Klein; Jizhuo Lang of Austin; Ivy Park of Carrollton; Angela Rao of Southlake; Tiffany Gao of Austin; Jair Araujo of Pasadena; and Noah Kang of Flower Mound.

Teachers!
Get your students ready for 2026! Lesson plans, entry forms, and fish facts are available online. Go to WildlifeForever.org.