Attention Rockwood students: Are you ready to up your Wildwood selfie game? Then enter the Route 66 Roadside Park Student Design Competition!

The Student Route 66 Taskforce is looking for your help to innovate and design Wildwood’s newest selfie backdrop! Tulsa, Oklahoma, has a 3D sculpture. Amarillo, Texas, has the Cadillac Ranch. What will Wildwood’s claim to fame be?

We are looking for a unique icon to make our historic corridor as memorable as possible!

Submissions will be accepted through Friday, Oct. 7, at 5 p.m. The winner or winners will be announced Friday, Oct. 21, with the winning idea or ideas incorporated into the park design. Top finalists will be invited to the park ribbon-cutting ceremony, once it is constructed.

For more information about the competition, including the official guidelines and a recorded presentation, click here.

The Wildwood Historic Preservation Commission is proposing to establish a Historic Route 66 Roadside Park as a tribute to the legacy of Route 66 on a half-acre parcel acquired by the city in 2019, which is in the core of Town Center at the southeastern corner of Grover Crossing Drive and Manchester Road. The parcel was located on the original Route 66, from 1926 to 1932, before the road was realigned.

The Student Route 66 Taskforce is composed of eight Rockwood students: co-chairs Lily Ge (Eureka High) and Shruthi Senthil (Wildwood Middle); vice chair and communications co-chair Sydney Schott (Rockwood Valley Middle); communications co-chair Haley Cottrell (Eureka High); secretary Lauren Dean (Lafayette High); Historic Preservation Commission liaison Nolan Myers (LaSalle Springs Middle); and events co-chairs Allie Elsayed Suliman (Eureka High) and Avyukth Raghuraman (Wildwood Middle).