Fargo South student hopes to become national finalist in Doodle for Google competition

FARGO, N.D. (KVRR) — A senior at Fargo South High School is hoping to be named a top 5 finalist in the national Google Doodle competition to win at least 50 thousand dollars in scholarship money.

16-year-old Denise Jiang heard about the Google Doodle competition while looking for art competitions online and decided to give herself a shot.

Her doodle, called ‘Slurp’, won North Dakota’s Doodle of Google contest. She’s now up against others in her age group around the country, in hopes of making it into the top five.

Jiang didn’t have to look far for her inspiration.

“This year’s theme was, ‘How do you care for yourself?’, I drew my inspiration from my mother because, usually I care for myself whenever I’m stressed or whenever I need something to relieve, I usually like to eat. My parents own a restaurant. I always eat really good food and my mom always makes the best food,” Jiang says.

Jiang has been working on her art on and off since the second grade. When it comes to art contests, this isn’t her first rodeo but what was new were judges noticing her skills.

“This is the first contest that I won….I draw in these smaller art competitions that I didn’t win but this is a larger one and I’m very surprised that I actually won. It’s always surprising and when I heard there was so many people that applied this year, it’s truly been an honor to win honestly,” says Jiang.

When she signed up for the Doodle competition, she was expecting her artwork to be overlooked that was the case.

But now this could be the opportunity of a lifetime with thousands of dollars of scholarship money at stake.

“You have to believe in yourself sometimes. Not giving up, I say, your opportunities, they don’t always come around but when they do, you gotta grab a hold of them and try your best,” said Jiang.

Voting closes at midnight on July 12.

You can vote for Denise’s doodle by clicking here under the Grades 10-12 group.