Leicester student earns top honors in statewide anti-tobacco poster contest

Dylan Modig, a third-grade student at Leicester Memorial School, has earned top honors in the 2011 Anti-Tobacco Poster Contest, an annual educational event sponsored by the Massachusetts Medical Society and its Alliance to alert schoolchildren to the dangers of tobacco and smoking.

Modig was one of just 12 winners selected from more than 3,500 entries to the competition. The contest is open to youngsters in grades 1-6 throughout Massachusetts. His entry, Leave Smoking for Chimneys, won in the Grades 3-4 category.

Along with the other winners, Modig was honored at a special event at the State House on June 9. Presenting the awards were Lynda Young, M.D., President of the Massachusetts Medical Society; Janet Kent, M.D., member of the Medical Society's Committee on Student Health and Sports Medicine; and Gladys Chan, President of the MMS Alliance.

The competition asks students to create an original poster that ties in with certain themes for their grade. The themes by grades are: Grades 1 and 2: Show how tobacco is bad for your body; Grades 3 and 4: Show how using tobacco affects other people; Grades 5 and 6: Why I won't start. Four entries are selected in each category.