Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
FORT WAYNE - Surely this is an automatic A for the class.
Marjae O'Brien completed a graphic design requirement in January. The assignment was to design a Bureau of Motor Vehicles license plate that will appear on more than five million Indiana cars beginning January 2003.
O'Brien, who lives in Fort Wayne attending IPFW, is originally from Silver Lake, where her parents, Michael and Joyce, still reside.
"I just heard yesterday," O'Brien said about being one of 16 finalists out of 1,400 designs submitted. "I was pretty excited."
O'Brien, a 1997 Warsaw Community High School graduate, has been interested in art as long as she could hold a crayon.
"I'm going for an associate's degree in graphic and computer design and a bachelor's degree in fine arts," she said. She has about two more years to finish course work.
"This was an assignment from one of our professors, Robert Colburn. I turned in mine in January."
Will she get an automatic A?
"It had better be," she said, laughing. "I do pretty well in this class; it will definitely help."
O'Brien described her entry as very simple with a graduating royal blue bar from the top and the bottom. The shape of the state is in the center with the State Seal over it. Her slogan is "Hoosier State."
Citizens will be able to vote for one of five proposed designs at any BMV license branch or online at www.state.in.us/bmv/ Public voting will take place May 9 to 18.
Whether or not O'Brien's design is one of the final five, she is one of the sweet 16. By May 7 the finalists will be announced.
