Students and staff from New Plymouth High School and Treasure Valley Classical Academy teamed up to paint murals under Interstate 84 near Fruitland.
PAYETTE COUNTY, Idaho — Whitley Drive in Payette County is home to two underpasses below Interstate 84 that were subject to graffiti on the concrete walls.
Payette County Commissioner Jennifer Riebe had an idea to cover two underpasses that frequently were tagged by high school graffiti artists.
“As I would drive through this underpass, I just got to thinking, ‘wouldn’t it be better if the local high school students could create a piece of artwork to display their talents, rather than what we were seeing is kind of ugly graffiti,'” Riebe said.
Riebe reached out to area high schools to see if any students were interested in beautifying the underpass.
New Plymouth High School art teacher Jenette Morgan accepted the challenge in 2024.
“We knew that it was a local problem, and we hoped that maybe it could be a local solution,” Morgan said. “If the people who painted the mural were the same age as those who were part of the problem, maybe they could respect the work of their peers and then choose to not tag again.”
She along with her senior art students worked about 60 hours in 2024 on the north underpass.
This summer, staff and students from Treasure Valley Classical Academy are helping with the mural installation as a community service project.
New Plymouth senior Chole Vigil-Burns is using this experience as part of her senior project.
“After being here and painting, like so many cars do come through here, and I don’t know, I being an artist and being able to do something this big, it was a little intimidating,” Vigil-Burns said. “But after like, getting out here and getting started, I realized that it was just – it was more fun than anything.”
Last year, Morgan said they used about 10 gallons of paint for the first installment. They plan to use just over 10 gallons in various colors this year.
A special thanks to the Payette County Road and Bridge Department for making sure students and teachers were kept safe with traffic control.
If you’d like to know more about New Plymouth High School or Treasure Valley Classical Academy check out their websites:
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
