COEUR d'ALENE - Abby Stanchfield said she loves art because it enables her to turn inspiration into a creative reality.

The Coeur d'Alene High School sophomore's design was recently selected as the winner of United Way's 2015 Spring Dash T-Shirt Contest. Stanchfield's "Running Tulips" design rose to the top of 136 entries from middle school and high school students throughout Kootenai County.

"It feels really good," Stanchfield, 16, said. "I was really shocked to win because a lot of people in my class are really talented. Our teacher always tells us that the biggest competition we are going to face is from the person sitting next to us and that's definitely true."

CHS art instructor Terri Leonard gave Stanchfield and her classmates some advice prior to the competition that the teen said was instrumental in her success.

"She told us to think of something unique," Stanchfield said. "So I thought I might as well put shoes on tulips and make them run."

During art class on Tuesday, Stanchfield was presented with a $100 prize from Bank of America, and got the chance to see her winning design on a shirt for the first time. She was all smiles while posing for pictures with the shirt, and told The Press that her love for art took off when she began taking classes with Leonard at CHS.

"Just being in here and seeing everything on the walls inspires you to create," Stanchfield said. "I might go to an art college and pursue something in that field because of this class."

Leonard added that she has seen improvement from Stanchfield since the day she started taking classes freshman year. Seeing her students succeed makes her proud, and she said her class is structured to give high-schoolers a real-world look at the career possibilities in the field.

"They'll be able to use this passion for art in the future," Leonard said. "When you look at the success of Abby's design you can see the quality of her work, which is definitely related to the effort she put out when creating it."

On Sunday, Stanchfield's shirts will be worn by participants in United Way of Kootenai County's 2015 Spring Dash. Executive Director Mark Tucker told The Press that his organization has been putting on the run for 33 years now, and approximately 1,000 people are expected to attend this year.

"The event helps us with a lot of our education and public health programs," Tucker said. "We like to use this event to focus on some of the health initiatives we have here, such as our program to combat childhood obesity."

Tucker added that it still isn't too late to join the event, and encouraged those interested in attending to visit www.KootenaiUnitedWay.org/Spring-Dash.