The Gretna Hot Spot Festival is sporting a new logo.

After reviewing the event's promotional material, Festival committee member Faye Dyck felt their logo was due for an update. The committee looked to the town's younger residents for a few new ideas.

"I made some posters up. We threw it up on our Facebook page. I threw it on my own social media," said Dyck. "We also went to the Gretna School, and they put posters up for us inside the school, so that way some teachers could get involved. Then we just put it up in town. Gretna is really good about, if you have it up at the store, or you have it up on the town billboard - everybody knows."

Of the thirty entries received, Gretna resident Lilly Giesbrecht was named the winner. 

"She did a fantastic job," said Dyck in describing Lilly's design. "She did [something] kind of like a sun and a sunflower I guess, on the outside. And then she had done a banner on the top and the bottom. The top says 'Gretna'. The bottom says 'Hot Spot', and then in the middle she had done the grain elevators from town, which was really cool. It feels recognizable, kind of homey, like some people want."

The young artist went home with a cash prize of $50, and some notoriety.

"Her logo is reaching way further than we expected it to. That's pretty cool. She's kind of like, town famous. It's our profile picture on our Facebook page, and so you'll start seeing it around on different things."

Dyck describes the young artist's process after learning about the competition from her mother.

"She's like, I don't know, I can draw, sure. So she ran upstairs, did some sketches and came down with the sketch that ultimately won, just sketched on a piece of paper. Mom took a picture with her phone and emailed it to us. Then later on, after she won and everything was settled, her mom messages me and says, Lily's been messing around with some color ones. Do you guys want to see some color photos? I'm like, sure, she's not required to but that's fantastic. So her mom sent me a bunch of digital art. She had digitalized the photo for us because she had just drawn it in pencil. So she had done this all on an old tablet they had in the house, and she filled it with color. We just took her exact art. And we're just like - done, that's it, she did it!"

This year, Gretna will host its annual Hot Spot Festival on July 14th and 15th. 


With files from Chris Sumner