UNIONTOWN, Ohio — Students at Lake/Middle High School in Stark County were asked to create murals celebrating Women's History Month. They didn't have to go far to find their inspiration.
The whole plan was called "Project Respect," and the murals would mimic the work of international artist Banksy, according to art teacher Jason Keller. He told the students to ask one fellow student and one staff member to model for the murals.
Their staff pick was Deputy Lirys Bueno, a student resource officer at the school. She agreed, but says she was speechless when she saw the murals in person.
Deputy Bueno has only been at the school about a year-and-a-half, but says the kids are like her own.
"My kids, I call them my kids, we have amazing kids. They are very smart, they are very outgoing here at Lake Middle/High School. It's a middle and a high school here in the same building, so I get everything a little bit of everything here, every day," she explains. "I love my kids. They come to me for different situations, just to give me a hug or tell me about their day."
She said she hopes the mural serves as inspiration for young girls to get into law enforcement. That hope may be possible when the murals become billboards. At the end of the month, they will go up around Stark County.
The project also speaks volumes about the power of art, says Keller. He says past similar projects have garnered interest, but not like this year's.
"In this case, with Project Respect as we call it, we really got a lot of good feedback from the students and administrators and visitors. A lot of people really resonated with the message behind this," he says.
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Editor's note: Video in the player above was originally published in an unrelated story on March 9, 2022.