Illinois student decorated Wyo's Easter egg in White House display
BEN NEARY Associated Press writer | Posted: Thursday, April 5, 2007 12:00 am
CHEYENNE - Out of more than half a million people in Wyoming, apparently nobody here can decorate an Easter egg.
A press release this week from the White House Office of the First Lady states that Philip M. LeDonne of Elmhurst, Ill., decorated the "Wyoming" egg unveiled this week at the annual State Egg Display at the White House Visitor Center.
The White House press release states that the American Egg Board "selects artists from each state to decorate eggs for the exhibition in recognition of the White House Easter Egg Roll." The White House has opened its grounds to local children for the annual event since 1878, and the annual state egg display started in 1994.
"It's wonderful to have these individual artists representing their states and coming together to create a colorful State Egg Display," first lady Laura Bush stated in the press release. She posed for an official photo with the 51 eggs, one from each state and the District of Columbia.
So how did LeDonne, an Illinois college student, come to decorate the official Wyoming egg?
Christine Bushway of Alexandria, Va., director of state programs for the egg board, said Tuesday the board first contacts egg promotional groups to try to get recommendations for an egg artist to represent each state. However, she said no such promotional group exists in Wyoming.
Bushway said the next step was to contact the International Egg Art Guild to try to get names of artists willing to prepare eggs from each state for display at the White House.
"They didn't have anyone to recommend for Wyoming," Bushway said of the guild. "We go through quite a procedure to try to find someone.
"We turned to a college student to do that particular egg," Bushway said of Wyoming. "It was a process, we asked for recommendations from various people in our office. And that was the name that was chosen."
Asked whether LeDonne is related to anyone at the egg board, Bushway said LeDonne's mother works for the egg board as an "administrative person." An attempt to reach LeDonne for comment on Tuesday was unsuccessful.
Bushway said the egg board didn't try to contact anybody in Wyoming state government to try to find an artist in the state who could decorate the official egg. She said there's no payment to artists whose eggs are chosen and said LeDonne hasn't prepared an egg for display in the event before.
"We try to get a new artist from every state," Bushway said. "This has been going on since the mid-1980s."
Asked if any other states have been represented by eggs decorated by out-of-staters, Bushway said, "Not many, very few. There might be a couple." She said she didn't know which particular states might have eggs decorated elsewhere.
Cara Eastwood, spokeswoman for Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal, said Wednesday that no one contacted the governor's office about finding a Wyoming artist to decorate the state egg.
"In the future, we hope that the White House gets a hold of the Wyoming Arts Council, that we would be happy to work with them," Eastwood said. "Wyoming has a wealth of artistic talent."
Camellia El-Antably, deputy manager of the Wyoming Arts Council, said Tuesday the council wasn't aware of the White House egg display.
"We didn't know that this was happening, and we're disappointed that we were not contacted to be asked to help find an artist who could represent our state," El-Antably said. "And we hope in the future to have an artist that can represent Wyoming."
Asked her opinion about the "Wyoming" egg on display at the White House, El-Antably said, "I note that most of the other eggs, there's some real thought put into how they represent the state. And we hope to see Wyoming represented with the same amount of thought in the future."