Eli Nix transforms trash to treasure: wins national title with soda can stained glass

Eli Nix stands next to his recyclable art project that won first place at the Beta National Convention recently in Savannah, Georgia.

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Chaffee High School students attended the 44th National Beta Club Convention in Savannah, Georgia, and returned home with a national champion.

Eli Nix, a junior — now rising senior — and the historian of Chaffee Beta Club, took first place at the convention in the Recyclable Art Division 2 by repurposing an old window and aluminum cans to make a stained glass window.

“The whole idea was to try and make it look like a stained glass art piece. But instead of it being glass, it was aluminum cans,” he explained. “It took me multiple times to get it. After I got all the pieces for the cardinal, I taped it under the glass and then started to glue it.”

Collecting the cans was a big effort for his friends and family to get the colors needed for the design — Cardinals sitting on tree branches — for the stained glass effect. The work included drinking particular brands to obtain specific colors. He did not count the cans needed but said he believes it was a few hundred.

“I wanted it to look like Cardinals on branches of the tree, so I picked out colors such as a bunch of green for leaves, and I got some Root Beer, the Mugs, because of the wood on the barrel to have it for the branches.” E.Nix said “Soda cans, you can't use all of it, just the color parts of the cans the logos. I did use a bunch of the Pepsi logo for the colors.”

Other than the cuts he got on his hands from the sliced aluminum cans, Nix said he really enjoyed making this project and is looking forward to making another one for this coming year.

Nix said the conference was chaotic, but not because of the competition. He was on the hunt to get as many trading pins as possible and get required stamps for the convention-exclusive pin. Consider these pins as a traded souvenir from each participating school at the convention.

The pin trading and hunting were favorite parts for Chaffee superintendent Shawn Nix, Eli's father, due to the way it made the students interact with each other.

“As a parent, the one thing that I love about about the pin trading — it makes students who may not be the most confident step out to talk, and this gives them an avenue to to meet people and to visit and learn about somebody from all over all over the country. Because have to step out to trade and to do those things. So I think that is that is one aspect that I think is neat," Shawn Nix said. “I mean if you want to put the time in to do it, there's a contest for you to try to go and be there, and at least the state level anybody can go and be part of. So it's really a neat thing for our kids, and I'm glad we are getting more involved with it.

Including Nix’s first-place finish, Chaffee’s Beta Club had three students place at the national competition, as well as two honorable mentions.

From the Chaffee Elementary BETA Club, Jadyn Dumey finished eighth in pottery. In the high school division, Eli Nix came in fourth in three-dimensional design, and Julie Myers finished seventh in onsite art/painting. The school's honorable mentions were a second and fourth in the scavenger hunt held.

The competition was the first for Kaitlyn Rodgers, the high school BETA sponsor, and she said she felt confident the students would perform well.

“I wasn't surprised. I think all of them had such great projects. It's proud to have three students even make it to nationals because you're up against many schools in Missouri, and then you're competing with the best of the best so I mean, it's nice. I'm very proud of every one of them,” she said.

Meyers competed in the onsite painting where she only had one hour to computer her painting and chose to use oil-based paint for her canvas, Rodgers said and it was a memorable time for the whole group to help her out.

“She was so nervous about it. She called me and she was the ‘I need sugar or salt or something.’ I was like, Why? And she goes, I need it to put it in my paint to make it textured. We were running around trying to help her out, you know, and doing that with her. She was just like, ‘I just don't know about this’. I'm like, I think it looks great,” Rodger said

The four pillars of the BETA club are academics, character, leadership and service, and Rodgers is trying to instill these in her BETA club members.

“I think for achievement, obviously having you know so many kids, I think we took close to 22 states seeing them, compete and work so long on these projects. It doesn't matter if they win. The fact that they show up, they do so well. They get excited about it. They want to do better. They're already working on projects now for next year," she noted. "We’re thinking about community service projects that we can do. I mean service and leadership go hand in hand, especially for the high schoolers showing the little kids how great BETA can be. I think that's super important. The way I see it, we're just trying to prepare these kids for the future being decent human beings and knowing what you know, makes a good person and trying to push them and let them do their own thing before they go off into the adult world.”