Runners Training for the Peachtree Wear UWG Art Student's Design

The AJC Peachtree Road Race is a few weeks away and several hundred people training for it throughout metro Atlanta are wearing T-shirts bearing a UWG’s student design.

Mary Schanzle-Stack’s T-shirt design – a red, white and blue running shoe in motion – was chosen by the Atlanta Track Club for participants of its In-Training for Peachtree program.

“They had already picked [the finalists] for the road race. I didn’t realize that there would be other opportunities. So it was a pleasant surprise,” said Schanzle-Stack, who lives in Douglasville. “All the hard work paid off.”

The 11-week program gets runners ready for the annual Fourth of July 10K, said Tracy Lott, the club’s director of marketing and communications. The program is designed for novice and intermediate runners who want to improve their times. About 500 T-shirts for the runners and their coaches have been printed.

Schanzle-Stack, an interior design major, is the latest UWG art student whose work was picked up by the club. A design by Lisa Bailey, an art education major, was chosen for the Peachtree Health & Fitness Expo. Bailey’s T-shirts will be on sale at the expo at the AmericasMart in downtown Atlanta on July 2 and 3.

Both were students in a “Digital Media for Artists” course this year taught by UWG Assistant Professor of Art Clint Samples. As part of the class, students submitted designs for the AJC Peachtree Road Race T-shirt Design Contest. Three of the five finalists – Jessica Ferguson, Alyssa Chitwood and Barbie Klimaszewski – came from the class. The winning design will be announced the day of the race. A second design submitted by Chitwood was chosen for the volunteer T-shirts.

“The class has done such amazing things for us,” Lott said.

This was the third consecutive year that Samples’ were finalists in the design contest. Allison Bennett, another one of Samples’ students, was the winner of the Peachtree design contest in 2010. Also last year, the track club picked Samples’ design for the volunteer T-shirts.

“Between him and students, they have done wonderful things,” Lott said.

For more information on the Atlanta Track Club: http://www.atlantatrackclub.org/