Employee's son awarded scholarship

Another wildly successful year of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is behind us, but the artwork produced from the remarkable talent of young artists-in-the-making from this event will linger on.

Many people by now know that the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is legendary for its charitable benefits to champion youth and support education. Perhaps lesser known is the School Art Program, which draws scores of painters, illustrators, and even sculptors from pre-K through the 12th grade who produce an original piece of art based on Western culture, history or heritage.

The pencil sketch here was created by Josh Dill, the son of Shell Deer Park employee Thomas Dill. Dill, a senior at Katy High School, produced this amazing rendering of his identical twin brother titled “The Lost Cowboy” and earned an impressive 30th place in this year’s school art contest.

Josh’s proud dad, an operator at the Cat Cracker/Alky unit, is equally in awe of his progeny’s supreme artistic talent. “Joshua always enjoyed drawing. He’s a football player too, but he’s got a very unique eye for art which, the senior Dill jokes, “I’m sure he didn’t get from me!”

Josh modestly shares, "I knew I wanted to enter something in the school art program for the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, but I didn’t expect to place with so many other entries. The rodeo is doing great things to help students with scholarship money. I really appreciate the scholarship money from them; as they say, hard work pays off. There are thousands of students that enter the school art competition each year, and I was shocked when I found out my drawing was selected. That was really cool."

The artwork was auctioned off for $8,000 with Joshua granted a portion of the proceeds for a scholarship.