CDC Cover Design Winner: Esperanza Acosta

For the 2022 JAG Career Development Conference (CDC), students met the challenge of designing a cover for the Program Booklet that would be distributed amongst more than 500 students, employer and community partners, and JAG board members. 

This year’s winners were Erick Osorio Canizalez, 3rd Place, Paradise Valley High School; Ruth Ochoa, 2nd Place, West Point High School - Multi Year; and Esperanza Acosta, 1st Place, Tolleson Union High School.

Esperanza Acosta, Vice President of Civic Awareness and Tolleson Union Senior, came into the conference unaware of the competition results. When her JAG coordinator, Richard Wellbrock, showed her the booklet for the event, she was speechless. 

“My coordinator came up to me and brought me one of the pamphlets,” Acosta said. “I didn’t expect to win. It was surprising. It caught me off guard too because I wasn’t ready for it. Then after that I walked into the Luncheon, and I saw it everywhere. It was really cool!”

For Esperanza, art has always been a passion of hers. She recalls the times growing up when she and her brother would spend time drawing together, “My older brother always encouraged me to draw and be more creative. We would always draw together. I just feel like it stayed with me.” 

The theme of this year’s CDC inspired her to depict the spirit of JAG and the importance of striving for one’s dreams. She chose to draw an astronaut reaching for a star as a way of symbolizing how “...he is reaching to ignite his light and really open up that door to opportunities.” 

Acosta currently has four art pieces featured in her district’s art show and plans to study Entrepreneurship and Marketing after graduating this month. 

See the latest coverage of CDC on our Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. 

Interested in learning more about JAG students’ success stories? Follow along with our Insider News.