"I help my students to discover that art is a window through which they can see the world beyond Chadbourn, as well as the world inside themselves," says Larry Hewett, an art teacher at Chadbourn Elementary School in Chadbourn. To introduce his students to "the world, its peoples, cultures and arts," Mr. Hewett created the Art Exchange program. To date, his students have exhibited work in 11 North Carolina counties, 42 U.S. cities in 22 states, and five foreign countries. The Adopt-A-Star program he developed allows students to correspond with the nationally known artists whose work they study. As part of a drug and alcohol awareness project, Mr. Hewett invited the entire student body to create a "Mural Reflecting Prevention." After winning a national competition, the student mural was exhibited in the nation's Capitol building and published in a nationally distributed calendar.
