Katherine Fillers, a rising seventh-grader at Colonial Heights Middle School, won the Doodle for Google contest for the state of Tennessee this year. David Crigger/BHC
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» The votes are in for state and territory winners, and the votes are being tallied. The five national finalists will be announced June 28.
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KINGSPORT, Tenn. — A treasured art set gifted to a young, budding artist has helped her on the way to artistic fame.
“She has been drawing since she was three or four years old, ” said Katie’s mother, Tammy Fillers. “She has always loved crayons, markers, all that stuff. She used to make little books and we’d staple them together and she would draw a little picture on each page.”
As she grew up, Katie continued to develop her interest in art. So last year, her uncle, the late Sullivan County Sheriff’s Sgt. Steve Hinkle, gave her an art kit. The kit, which came in a wooden box, contained an array of art supplies, including colored pencils, oils, pastels, paints, paintbrushes, pencils, markers. The gift is especially meaningful since Sgt. Hinkle was killed in the line of duty earlier this year.
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Katie has made great use of it and recently used it to create a picture for the Doodle for Google contest, in which students at schools across the country submit their image of the word “Google.” The students were told to create an image of Google that expresses “when I grow up, I hope ….”
“My hope was that the oceans are clean, ” Katie said. She explains that her picture, which she drew with colored pencils from her art kit, contains an octopus with scrapes and litter stuck on his tentacles, an eel trapped in plastic rings and other images that show the results of litter and pollution.
A student at Colonial Heights Middle School in Kingsport, Katie drew the picture as part of an assignment in her art class. Just prior to the contest, she had learned in science class about the garbage piles in the ocean. She also vividly remembers an image of a dead bird with its insides filled with plastic. Katie says she immediately wanted to help.
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Katie also supports an organization called 4Ocean, which removes plastic waste from the oceans. She even has a bracelet from 4Ocean, made out of plastic that has been taken out of the seas and recycled.
As school drew to a close this May, Katie was surprised during an assembly when the principal called her up to the stage.
Instead, she learned that her doodle had been selected as the state winner for Tennessee. She received balloons and presents from Google; the company also gave her a new Google Chromebook as part of her prize for winning at the state level.
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Now, Katie is in the running for the national award. The online voting ended Friday, June 7, and national winners will be announced June 28. The judges were Jimmy Fallon, Kermit the Frog and 2018 Teacher of the Year Mandy Manning.
The top five winners of the contest will get an expense-paid trip to Google headquarters in San Francisco, California, where the final selection will take place. Each of the top five contestants will receive a $5, 000 scholarship. The overall winner will receive a $30, 000 scholarship plus a $50, 000 technology award for their school. The winner’s Google picture will also be used on the website for a day.
“I’m very proud of her, ” Fillers said. “She’s a good kid. She’s got a good heart. She loves people and she has a kind heart for people and animals.”
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In addition to her artwork, Katie made honor roll at school this past year. She also plays the flute, and participates in dance, softball and swim team. She enjoys playing tennis and going biking with her father, Frank.
Katie plans to stick with her passion for helping the oceans and its inhabitants. She wants to study marine biology in college – which hopefully will be paid for by a scholarship from Google.
“Katie has done well with everything she does, ” Fillers said. “She starts something new and in no time, she does it like it’s nothing. She’s really going to go places.”
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Katherine Fillers, a rising seventh-grader at Colonial Heights Middle School, won the Doodle for Google contest for the state of Tennessee this year.
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© Copyright 2023 Bristol Herald Courier - Tricities, 320 Bob Morrison Blvd. Bristol, VA 24201 | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Do Not Sell My InfoThe trouble started in DeKalb County in August 2018. Wendy Hancock’s 16-year old son, Chantz, ran away from home when Hancock wouldn’t let his girlfriend stay overnight.
Mom filed a missing persons report with the Smithville Police Department on August 8, 2018. Chantz was with his estranged father, Kevin Bowling, a drug-addict.
It is unclear how the Department of Children’s Services (DCS) knew that but two days later, DCS caseworker Deandra Miller visited Bowling who tested positive for meth-amphetamine. Instead of returning Chantz to his mother, who was the custodial parent, DCS took him into custody and a week later took his 12-year old sister, Briella.
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As we have reported, punitive and perverse outcomes are common in DCS cases all over Tennessee. DCS prosecutes poor parents who rarely can afford an attorney to defend them. It is also common for DCS to use drug use as a pretext to wrongfully remove kids from their families. (See Child Dies)
Juvenile Court judges routinely grant a removal order to DCS after they file a dependent and neglect petition. Using that legal document, DCS removes thousands of kids every year from their families and put them in foster care, a booming industry.
The estranged Father was a drug-user, not Mom, and that should be relevant. DCS often uses failed drug tests to show the children are abused or neglected even when they’ve tested the wrong party.
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What DCS should have done is get family services to counsel the family and work out Chantz’s problem with his mother. But this story is not about what could or should have happened but about what did. In this case, DCS ran with Chantz’s allegation that his Mom, who wouldn’t let him have sex with his girlfriend in her house, was a drug dealer.
, the same day she filed a missing persons report. Miller wanted Hancock to take a drug test. Hancock told her to talk with her attorney, Connie Reguli. “I don’t have to talk to your attorney. I will just go and get a court order, ” Miller said. And she did. But it wasn’t about taking a drug test. That was just a pretext and Hancock later passed the test. Miller had something more sinister in mind.
Before it was over, at least 15 people were drawn into the conspiracy to prosecute Hancock and railroad Reguli. There were police from Smithville and Brentwood, foster parents in Jackson, a DCS foster home contractor, DCS attorneys and caseworkers, clerks, judges, and district attorneys in two counties.
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Miller went to Juvenile Court Judge Michael Collins in Smith County to get a removal order but he had no jurisdiction in DeKalb County so the order was invalid. But that didn’t stop the judge from issuing the order or DCS from taking the children.
Smith County Juvenile Court Judge Michael Collins issued a removal order to allow DCS to take Briella from her mother in August 2018.
Reguli went to Collins to argue he had no jurisdiction in the case and no authority to issue the removal order. He recused himself. But the damage was done, the game was afoot, and things were about to take a nasty turn. During that fateful week in August 2018, Reguli said that she called DCS six or seven times.
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“Thursday I call DCS. Friday I call DCS; Friday I call the detective. Monday I call DCS; Monday I call the detective.I made four calls to the clerk’s office Monday all trying to find out what’s going on and they won’t tell me. They tell me they are going to fax a petition. They don’t do it.
Tuesday comes. I call DCS again. Nobody calls
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