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Athens High School Student Awaits Google Contest Reveal
By: Michael Locklear
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An Athens High School student will find out Thursday afternoon whether she's won a Google doodling competition.
The search engine has flown Emma McLaughlin and her dad to New York for the big reveal.
She's one of the state winners of the "Doodle 4 Google" contest in the running for a $30,000 college scholarship.
The search engine often replaces its logo on the homepage with a doodle to celebrate different holidays.
McLaughlin says her design is based on the Gutenberg printing press.
"I carved it into a piece of linoleum rubber stuff, and it says 'Google' in gothic lettering, and it's a stamp, so I just rolled ink onto it and pressed it onto paper," she said.
Last year, more than a hundred-thousand students entered the competition.
Online voting decides the top five, and those folks will get some scholarship money too.
Her dad, Joe McLaughlin, says it's nice to see the 15-year-old at the center of all the attention.
"Students tend to get a lot of recognition for athletic accomplishments. There's a lot more attention paid to that, and it's really neat for some attention to be focused on Emma and on Athens High School for something to do with the arts," he said.
The winner's school also gets a $50,000 technology grant.
The top doodle will be featured on Google's homepage on Friday.