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Sunset Park Mural Photo Gallery

Shawn Bro, the Parks Maintenance Coordinator for Airway Heights Parks and Recreation, has been working to beautify the area’s parks and buildings since he was hired in 2019. The beigy-brown exterior of the Airway Heights Parks and Recreation maintenance office at Sunset Park was a bit of an eyesore, and Bro began brainstorming ways to make it more inviting.

“I was planning on painting the building, and I was standing there looking at it, and I thought, well, it’s a giant billboard,” Bro said. “To try to keep vandalization down and make things look better, I thought, well maybe we could try to put some art on the side of it.”

Bro reached out to Cheney High School art teacher Becki Dempsey to pitch the idea of a mural; he had a previous connection with Dempsey as she taught both of his children in her art classes.

“At first I was like, well, I’ll take it to the team because I just have never done a mural,” Dempsey recalled. “So, I took it to PLC, and then Katherine [Potter], and Sherry [Syrie] and Hannah [Brown] were all very receptive, like, let’s do this.”

All the secondary art teachers across the district are part of the art Professional Learning Community (PLC), with Potter representing Westwood Middle School, Syrie representing Cheney Middle School, and Dempsey and Brown at CHS. The team spearheaded the project, with planning beginning in the spring of 2025. 

“We had to pause it because of summer break,” Syrie said. “We were still getting it organized and buying paint, and then this fall we ran the contest with all the secondary schools.”

Bro set the parameters and expectations of the mural to guide the competition. It needed to be colorful, tie in aviation, green spaces, the water tower, and of course, a sunset. “I just sat there and thought about all these things that could possibly represent what Airway Heights is,” Bro said.”

The district art PLC team introduced the competition to their students last spring, but without dedicated classroom time to work on the project, there was not a lot of follow through or interest from students. 

“So we’re like, we need to give them time to work on it,” Potter said. “And that worked a lot better. We gave it to all of our students, but not all of them wanted to continue to really polish the piece and turn it in for the competition. I would say we had over 100 that did, and they took it home and got their parents to sign off on it, then brought it back and submitted it for the competition.”

In addition to Bro’s parameters, the art PLC team also had to consider if the submissions could be recreated on a larger scale.

“We were like, can we actually paint this or is it too highly detailed or too complicated?” Potter said. “Some things were off topic, so we screened those out. We looked through them and sent on what we thought were 15 really good options.”

The 15 contenders were sent on to Bro and his department for the final decision on the artwork. The selection? A uniquely colorful design from CMS eighth grader Mira Perret. The district art PLC team agreed that although there were several spectacular submissions, Perret incorporated all of Bro’s parameters.

“I feel like hers was the only one that really covered everything that Shawn wanted,” Brown said. “The sunset, the water tower, the airplanes, the nature. She was able to fit all of that because of the way she did the design.”

“Her design was remarkable; it stood out,” Potter concluded. 

Perret, who is a second-year art student in Syrie’s class, says she has always been drawn to murals, so when the opportunity to create her own mural presented itself, she was excited to enter.

“I grew up in Moscow, Idaho, which is a small college town, and because of that there were a lot of murals in the area, and they’ve always drawn my attention,” Perret said. “Not only do they convey a message or meaning about the place they’re located, but it can really brighten up areas and spark interest for other people that wouldn’t necessarily go out of their way to see art daily. So when I heard about the Sunset mural contest, I thought it would be fun to enter and possibly get a chance to put my ideas on a wall to impact people even in a small way.”

Once the design was selected, the planning began. Since this was the first mural design and application for the entire district art PLC team, it was a learning experience. Dempsey reached out to former student and Seattle muralist, Kendra Wells, for some advice.

“I texted her and asked some questions, you know, what do I need to do?” Dempsey said. “How do I get started? And she really helped out and sent me a long email of things to think about.”

Things like temperature, weather, the building texture, and surface materials. All of these elements have an impact on a mural. The district PLC team prepped the site during the district-wide Professional Learning Day on Oct. 10, painting the letters so it was ready to go for student volunteers to paint the design. Then, on a blustery Saturday a week later, they got to work.

“It was probably 34 degrees that first day with the wind chill,” Syrie said. “The metal building was freezing, and then the paint was freezing, and so everything started gelling like jam on bread…We made it work and threw on a second layer when it was warmer later in the day.”

Each teacher credits another for their work on the mural, from Potter’s preparation grid work to Syrie’s freehand painting of some of the curves.

“It took all of our eyes and areas of expertise to try to get it ready for the kids, then try to keep the kids on track as they were haphazardly doing all the things they do,” Syrie said with a laugh.

“Every single person in that PLC did their part for sure, just helping each other, talking it through,” Dempsey added. “Our team has always been a pretty strong team.”

Nearly 20 students participated in painting the mural, coming in shifts throughout the day on Oct. 18. They assisted with various tasks, and from Potter’s perspective, they were incredibly selfless. 

“All the kids were so open-minded and would just be like, ‘I’m here to help. What do you need me to do?’” Potter said. “Even if it was a small thing like touching up edges with brown paint, you know, there was never like, ‘I want to do something different!’ They were just really, really giving of themselves to the project.”

“There was an element of, it’s going to be here for decades, potentially, so this is important, and we need to help each other out, hold ladders, endure the elements because this is important,” Syrie added. “Slow down and have fun. Hannah brought music and Katherine and Becki brought food and hot cocoa. So, of course, there’s that kid element where it’s festive. We want it to be enjoyable so we get help again in the future potentially, just so they have a great experience with this thing that they did that was really special.”

With so many people involved with the execution of the project, Perret learned a lot about working together with her peers and shared experiences. 

“I learned a lot about collaboration,” she said. “I didn’t get to paint the whole thing myself, and that part was actually really hard for me. I don’t feel like it’s mine anymore. But, this is also exciting since it is supposed to represent the community. It is made by a lot of people for a lot of people, not just me. It’s a community project.”

The hours spent creating, planning, preparation, and execution resulted in a beautiful addition to Sunset Park, encompassing all that is Airway Heights. A real community effort, for a special community mural. 

“I love it,” Bro said. “It does everything that I thought it would, and it stands out.”

 

Click here or click the image to read the November Community Connections newsletter! 

 

Hello Cheney Public Schools!

The October edition of the Community Connections district newsletter is now available! Click here or the photo below to learn more about the Cheney FFA Ag Day, district Professional Learning Day, grant presentations to local educators, and more. 

 

 

Basketball and community service are not synonymous terms, but for the Shoes 2 Play club basketball team, you cannot have one without the other. A relatively new program, Shoes 2 Play, or S2P, combines building basketball skills with building character.

Joshua Loera, head coach of S2P and a local insurance broker, has always had the desire to give back to his community. A self-described servant leader, he is one of the founders of the Love Your Neighbor Foundation, a local non-profit organization focused on making a positive impact in Spokane and neighboring communities. The idea of S2P was born about five years ago when Loera learned of a local student that lived in their car and did not have shoes.

“I went to the Nike store and bought a bunch of shoes and gave it to them,” Loera said. “From there, it just kind of turned into what it is now.”

Today, S2P is a club basketball program teaching area girls both basketball and servant leadership skills; a crossover coupled with community service. For Windsor Elementary parent and second grade teacher Kristen Myers, it was an incredible opportunity to support the growth of her daughter in more than just sports.

“I quickly realized it was more than just a basketball team,” Myers said. “[Joshua] was really supporting the character of the whole athlete, not just, ‘You’re playing basketball, and we’re here to win.’ You know, let’s build character too.”

Shoes 2 Play players have learned the importance of giving back to the community–fittingly with shoes. During the 2024-25 playing season, Myers’ daughter and the rest of the S2P then-fourth-grade girls basketball team volunteered to raise funds that went toward purchasing shoes and socks for 42 students at Windsor Elementary.

“I worked with our counselor and she emailed out to [the parents/guardians] for 42 kids,” Myers said. “We got their sizes, and then on the day of the event, we went down to Nike. I just had the kiddos’ first names, shoe size, and if they were a boy or a girl. We assigned a kiddo to each of the team members.”

The S2P players not only picked out the shoes and socks for each recipient, but they also took the time to write a personalized note to every recipient as well.

“That’s something that we really focus on with the girls’ writing is, you know, put your thought into it and really care about what you’re writing because some of these kids may keep these cards forever, and it might change their life,” Loera said. “You just never know.”

It set the expectation for the players heading into the 2025-26 playing season. Using funds raised during the previous season, the S2P program donated 50 pairs of socks and shoes to students at Sunset Elementary on September 16. Loera delivered the shoes along with a few players from the team, and the elated chorus of happy recipients echoed through the front office.

“It’s just overwhelming, to be honest,” said Sunset Principal Sara McKennon. “It’s completely overwhelming to think about the generosity that they are providing, and for students that they have no connection to…It was so moving. Definitely fighting back some tears there.”

The majority of S2P’s funds stem from the largest fundraiser for the program, the Great Pumpkinfest. It is an annual fall event that Loera began in the fall of 2020, and it spans four weekends running late September through October. Loera’s family supplies the event with thousands of pumpkins–all homegrown on his family’s farm in Moses Lake–along with facepainting, live music, dancing, and a petting zoo. It is a family-friendly event, with all proceeds going directly to charities in the local community. Players volunteer their time in shifts, helping patrons pick out pumpkins or selling raffle tickets.

“That’s where we earned a lot of the money to be able to give back to the community,” Myers said.

The S2P experience has generated multiple touchpoints for players to engage in servant leadership and community service, bringing awareness to the various levels of privilege and accessibility across the community. The excitement on both the players’ and recipients’ faces during the shoe distribution at Sunset was evident, a shared connection of happiness between kids.

“A first grader last year who received a pair of shoes is now in my class and still wears them,” Myers said. “He told me, ‘Teacher, do you know that a kid gave me these shoes?’ Kids helping each other is what this is all about.”

The September edition of Community Connections, the district's monthly newsletter, is now available. This month's edition includes a list of no school/non-student days, district notices, and a story about district fifth graders learning about servant leadership through shoes.

Click here or click the photo below to read the newsletter today!