Lakeland grad passed school through a lens
When you see Jessica Monroe, it’s not uncommon to see a camera in her hands.
The 18-year-old senior at Rathdrum’s Lakeland High School loves art in general, but photography in particular, and has achieved success already in what she hopes will be her life’s work. She has entered Lakeland’s art competition for the past several years and has consistently done well in several of the categories. In her sophomore year, her photo of wildflowers in a water bottle was judged best in show.
After she created a heart last year using punch-out symbols, she was asked by the school’s librarian if she would make a similar image in the form of a hawk, the school’s mascot. So she used small green and gold (Lakeland’s colors) hawk-shaped paper punch-outs, glued them on a background to form the shape of a larger hawk, and bent up the wings, creating a three-dimensional image. She donated the finished work to the library’s permanent collection, and it is now displayed just inside the door of the library.
She spent spring break last year with an aunt, who is a professional photographer in California, where she learned more about photography as an art and a business. And she took a beginning photography course at North Idaho College. But the rest has been self-taught – aided by the quality digital camera given to her for her 16th birthday by her parents, Chris and Jim Monroe.
She has taken senior pictures for friends and continues to explore her art. She has also been involved with Girls Scouts for 12 years and, with her mother as her troop leader, has been involved in many community service activities. They have done a number of color guard events, flag retirement ceremonies, placing of flags on military graves, providing support to members of the military (packages from home for service members), food drives, cemetery clean-up projects and more. She even helped at a father-daughter dance where she took pictures for those in attendance.
Also through the Scouts, she participated in an international conclave in Canada where she got to interact with girls from all across the world. She enjoys longboarding and camping with her family, which they do nearly every weekend in the summer.
Monroe said she has enjoyed growing up in Rathdrum and appreciates the beauty of the area. This fall she will be attending the University of Idaho, where she plans to major in art, with a minor in photography. She hopes eventually to be able to earn a living as a photographer – and she’d like to travel the world and capture much of it through her lens.