A River Falls High School freshman has won first place in a state conservation poster contest two years in a row, representing Pierce County and Wildcat Pride.

Claire Miller was the first-place winner of the WI Land+Water Youth Education Committee 68th Annual Conservation Awareness Poster Contest (grades 7-9) in March 2025. She was honored at the organization’s 72^nd conservation conference in Green Bay March 5-7, 2025 and advanced to represent Wisconsin at the National Association of Conservation Districts Poster Contest, where she earned second place in her division.

And now she’s done it again. Miller earned first place in the 2026 WI Land+Water Youth Education Committee 69^th Annual Conservation Awareness Poster Contest and will once again represent Wisconsin at the national level.

The 2025 poster theme was “Home is Where the Habitat Is,” which challenged students to creatively illustrate the importance of healthy habitats in supporting wildlife and ecosystems.

“I mostly used alcohol markers and fine detailing with colored pencils, and maybe occasionally white gel pens for the stars,” Miller said. “They didn’t give us many details on direction. I knew I wanted to have different animal species and kind of have different habitats and sections throughout the drawing. I had multiple ways I wanted to do it. I tried to only include animals from Wisconsin.”

She began by drawing small thumbnail sketches, culminating in a series of ideas that led to the big poster.

“This one took me a long time; it might have taken two to three weeks,” Miller said.

She received a plaque, glass trophy, oil pastels and other art supplies as prizes. For the national second-place win, she will receive a cash prize, though she’s not sure of the amount yet.

Conservation and the environment have always been important to Miller. She has always cared about animals, and her family is enthusiastic about the outdoors.

“I even like the scary or ugly ones,” Miller laughed.

“When she was little, she used to teach people about bugs at the campground,” her mother Mary Miller said. “Anything natural world and art, or fantasy art is right up her alley.”

For this year’s contest, the theme was “Soil: Where It All Begins.” Miller’s pen drawing won first place again in her division, announced at the 73^rd annual conference in Wisconsin Dells. She will move on to represent Wisconsin at the National Association of Conservation Districts (NACD) Poster Contest held at the NACD annual meeting in 2027. 

Miller chose to use pen this year as her medium for a grittier look.

“I feel like pen is not as big of a thing to work with,” she said. “I also wanted to do something different and make both of them stand out from each other. I have recently really been into the pen stuff and felt I could convey it better if I just did pen, with a moodier look to it.”

Miller said this drawing took her about 1.5 days to complete. She even brought it to school one day and worked on it during some classes, trying to get it done.

“It was really fun and I like how every year they have a different theme,” Miller said. “It’s fun to do art contests, and I could maybe get some stuff if I win it.”

Miller said she’s always loved art and can’t remember a time when she wasn’t drawing. She really got into it in fifth grade, when she started watching tutorials online. She has taken as many art classes as possible at RFHS and has attended a few at the Phipps in Hudson. She doesn’t have a favorite medium, preferring to change things up.

“It depends on the day,” Miller said. “I do really, really like alcohol markers specifically. If I do a color drawing, I usually do alcohol markers with colored pencils over it. Then I’ll do pen if it’s not in color. Pen can be bolder and more challenging and doesn’t leave pencil smudges.”

Miller has also competed at Chalk Fest in Eau Claire and loves to enter online contests. In fact, she won 10^th place in one YouTube contest and placed well in a Scholastic book art competition for the “Wings of Fire” FanWing Fest. Her drawing was chosen from over 200 drawings to be published in a booklet featuring characters from “Wings of Fire,” a popular New York Times bestselling children's high-fantasy series about dragons written by Tui T. Sutherland.

Miller also enjoys creating masks and puppets. She has been tasked with creating “Sven” for River Falls High School’s fall musical, “Frozen.”

“I’m just excited to make it because it gives me practice with props and stuff,” Miller said.

Miller hopes to turn her passion for art into a lucrative career someday, perhaps combining it with her love of writing.

“I have so many options. I do also like to write and a big thing that I do with my art is design my own characters for my stories,” Miller said. “I think it would be really cool to work for an animation company like DreamWorks. For a starting career, maybe I could do just like art commissions.”

It will be fun to see where Miller’s artwork takes her. In the meantime, she’s doing Pierce County proud.