Two students at an Oxford school have won an arts prize set up in memory of former student who was knocked down while cycling along the A40 on Christmas morning.
Lina Ben-Adal, 18, and Anastasia Voronstova, 17, were the latest winners of The Cherwell School’s Dan Hemingway Memorial Award.
The pair took first place for a project that saw them write articles, take photographs and design pages for a magazine with a working title of Icona.
It is the first time that the prize, which is open to sixth formers at the North Oxford secondary, has been won by more than one person.
Ms Ben-Adal hopes to pursue a career in graphic design, while Ms Voronstova is interested in working in interior design and architecture.
Dan, a gifted musician and aspiring 19-year-old writer, had left the school less than two years before he died after being hit by a car while cycling along the A40 at Cassington on Christmas Day, 1991.
His parents Sue and John set up the award in 1992 to inspire and encourage creative teenagers at Cherwell to pursue a career in the arts.
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The Dan Hemingway Prize for short story writing was also founded at at the University of St Andrews where he was studying when he died.
Previous winners include illustrator David Trumble, actor and musician Daniel Zappi and journalist and novelist Will Wiles, who is now a judge.
Other judges include musician and producer Miles Waters, writer and artist Hannah Forbes Black and artist Amy Tiffany Hemingway.
Fellow judge Mrs Hemingway, owner of the Hemingway Art gallery in Cassington, said: “It is an amazing piece of work and not what you would expect two sixth-form girls to produce.
“I could quite easily see this work on a newsagent’s shelf and not think twice about it. It wasn’t amateurish in any way at all.
“It was witty and clever, and a huge amount of work and creativity went into producing it.
“They took all the photos themselves and organised shoots at Godstow, the University Parks and elsewhere – it was just brilliant as a piece of work.”
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