Guyana secured two top places in the recently-held CARICOM Regional Art Competition in the secondary school category through students from Patentia Secondary School on the West Bank of Demerara.

Patentia Secondary School student Evrods Wilson won the first prize while his schoolmate Rhonda Chee-A-Tow secured the 5th prize.

Wilson presented his interpretation of the theme 'What CARICOM means to me' in the form of a collage, a release from the CARICOM Secretariat said yesterday. Using the flags of CARICOM, he created colourful building blocks, mounted together to form a pyramid-type structure and around that were symbolic representations of Caribbean harmony - including images of sport, musical notes, people, dance and celebration. Schoolchil-dren from Guyana and Saint Lucia have captured the top prizes in the competition, which forms part of the activities marking the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Chaguaramas that established the Caribbean Community, the release said.

The competition was open to students from the primary and secondary schools and was divided into age categories 8-11 and 12-16. The themes were 'What CARICOM means to me' for the secondary schools and 'We live in the Caribbean' for the primary schools.

In the primary school category, the winner was Zennisha Richard of the Ciceron Combined School, Saint Lucia. Her piece entitled 'Clothes for the Sun-Heat' depicted a beach scene and was painted in a field of blue with the main character in lovely colours including pink and yellow, the release said.

A total of five prizes were given in each category with winners emerging from most Member States which entered the competition. Saint Lucia captured the most prizes winning the 1st, 3rd, and 4th prizes in the primary school category, with Grenada copping the 2nd prize and St Kitts and Nevis taking the 5th prize in that category.

And in the secondary schools category where Guyana secured 1st and 5th spots, Grenada won the 2nd prize and Belize took the 3rd and 4th prizes.

The panel of three judges - Stanley Greaves of Guyana, Luigi St Omer of Saint Lucia and Curator of Guyana's Art Gallery Elfrieda Bissember - selected the winners of the competition following judging on February 5 in Georgetown.

Observing that the theme 'What CARICOM means to me' for the older children was a little challenging to interpret, the judges noted how impressed they were with the ability of the students to creatively represent the "joie de vivre" of the Caribbean. "We enjoyed how they depicted the theme. The winners showed delightful and positive things about living in the Caribbean, very much from a child's perspective," the release quoted the judges as saying.

The more than 50 entries were placed at the Cara Lodge Hotel in Georgetown for public viewing last Friday, the release added.