All-around top student

Hundreds of tiny dots earned Kerry Costigan-Galdes a spot in the U.S. Achievement Academy’s annual yearbook. The 17-year-old Spirit Lake student was declared a national award winner in art after being nominated by Carrie Scozzaro, her art teacher at Timberlake Jr./Sr. High School.

Costigan-Galdes’ uncommon talent is apparent in an art assignment, where she portrayed George Clooney’s face using pointillism. This technique, also called stippling, creates pictures using a series of minute dots. Costigan-Galdes managed to capture Clooney’s expression and won first prize in the pen-and-ink category in a competition sponsored by North Idaho College’s graphic design department in May.

Costigan-Galdes admits that she struggled with the painstaking assignment and remains critical of the way shades of light color the actor’s face. She worked from a photograph of Clooney standing by a window as sunlight fell through the shutters.

“I had a really hard time with the shading,” she said.

Costigan-Galdes didn’t know her teacher had nominated her for the achievement award until she got her notice in the mail.

“I was really surprised,” she said. “She has quite a bit more confidence in my artwork than I do.”

The U.S. Achievement Academy was founded in 1980 to recognize top scholars in different areas and enables winners to apply for scholarships. As Costigan-Galdes enters her senior year this fall, she will be trying to decide where to apply for college and her area of focus. Besides art, Costigan-Galdes stands out in academics, leadership and character, according to her art teacher.

“I nominated her because she is exemplary,” Scozzaro said. “She has the drive and desire, and she works very hard.”

Scozzaro noticed from the beginning of Art I class last year that Costigan-Galdes had exceptional ability and was overqualified. She quickly placed her student in more advanced lessons and will have her enrolled in an independent study of art this year. Costigan-Galdes will work on developing a portfolio that she can use for employment or college and look for other contest and scholarship opportunities.

Besides raw talent, Scozarro sees in her student a willingness to plod through the most rigorous assignments, such as her George Clooney project. That work ethic is what keeps Costigan-Galdes an all-around top student and National Honor Society member with a 4.0 grade-point average.

“I gave her more things to do and she rose to the challenge,” Scozzaro said. “It’s a treat to have a student like her because she makes me look good. That’s a reward.”

Despite her talent, Costigan-Galdes is undecided whether to pursue art as a career or follow her love of science as a marine biologist.

“The class I’m most looking forward to besides art is anatomy,” she said.

Her two interests do mesh, as Costigan-Galdes has studied Leonardo da Vinci’s work and admired how he used cadavers to make his art realistic. Form and posture have always captured her imagination, and her first artwork began independently with figure drawing books. School classes led her to try new mediums, and she has dabbled in etchings, tempura paint, acrylics, pastels and more. National Geographic magazines are often the source of inspiration for her artwork.

Costigan-Galdes also won a $200 first prize in a design-an-ad contest in February. She plans to offer her art talent for the school newspaper cartoon this year, which is centered around the character of a Siberian tiger, the Timberlake school mascot. Costigan-Galdes has firsthand experience of the mind of the tiger and the warmth of the tiger suit. She has been entertaining crowds as the school mascot since her freshman year.

Costigan-Galdes was born in Alaska and moved to North Idaho about 13 years ago. She and her mother, Cheryl, and 15-year-old brother, Chris, moved in with her grandfather, Robert Costigan, in hopes that the children would benefit from living in a community with a good school.

“He’s the reason I’m able to do the things I do,” Costigan-Galdes said.

She has taken every advantage and keeps her schedule filled with activities, such as mentoring students through the Ignite program and holding the chapter president title for Idaho Drug Free Youth at Timberlake since seventh grade. Costigan-Galdes played varsity basketball last year and takes dual enrollment classes at North Idaho College.

She has volunteered at the animal shelter and for roadside litter cleanups and loves to attend plays, musicals and concerts. She has a couple of colleges in mind for the future, but her choice will depend on what she decides as her major.

“I want to get the best instruction I possibly can,” she said.